The SWRHA is responding to claims made in a newspaper report that a healthy baby died of a bacterial infection at the San Fernando General Hospital.

The article says the death occurred in August 2022, with the mother saying she was told that two other babies had died from similar bacterial infections that month as well.

The SWRHA says a review of its records does not indicate three deaths related to the same microorganism in August 2022.

It adds that the neonatal mortality rate at the NICU is 3 to 4 deaths per 1,000 live births for the period 2021-2023.

This, it adds is well below the World Health Organization’s global neonatal mortality figures of 17 per 1,000 live births published in 2022.

As for the case highlighted in the article, the SWRHA says it was “not proactively afforded the opportunity to respond prior to its publication.”