In a series of sessions held yesterday, Wednesday 8 October 2014 and lasting more than six hours, representatives of the Attorney General’s office, the National Police and the National Forensic Sciences Institute (Inacif) interviewed medical as well as support staff who worked at Santo Domingo’s Robert Reid Cabral Children’s Hospital over the weekend of 4-5 October 2014. The investigation is being carried out in order to establish the real cause of the deaths of 11 children, mostly babies and newborns, at the hospital. Court of Appeals general prosecutor Virgilio Peralta, assistant prosecutor Joselito Ceron Rivera, Inacif director Francisco Gerdo and Criminal Investigations Department (DiCrim) director General Cesar Sena Rojas were selected by their superiors, who President Danilo Medina had appointed to a commission in order to establish the facts in the case.
The investigators also interviewed Guillermo Perez, the president of the Lindegas Company, which supplies oxygen to the health center.
At the end of the sessions, after 2pm, they went to the National Health Insurance (Senasa) offices with the patients’ medical records, in order to support the report that they delivered to Senasa director and commission member Altagracia Guzman Marcelino, who in her role as a pediatrician will audit the case-files and give her conclusions to the President.
Meanwhile, the parents of six-year-old Andry Gabriel Geraldino said that they hoped their son’s death would serve to improve health care. Their son died due to a failure in post-operatory conditions.