St. John’s Antigua- Mount St John’s Medical Centre (MSJMC) has admitted to allegations that a 15-year-old schoolboy was discharged from the facility, even as the pin he went to remove from his stomach, was still there.
Spokesperson for the medical centre Salma Crump yesterday confirmed doctors attended to the Princess Margaret School student Saturday night, when he and his mother went there to have the pin removed.
Crump confirmed the child was examined, x-rays were done and he was then given certain advice and discharged because “at that time we were not in a position to deal with it.”
The child’s mother had told OBSERVER Media he accidentally swallowed the flat head pin Saturday and when he went to MSJMC to have it removed, the hospital said it could not carry out the procedure because the Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT) specialist was not there.
The hospital’s communications officer said the medical centre has only one ENT specialist but only on a consultant level.
She said she was not permitted to say anything else on the matter because of hospital confidentiality policies.
Meantime, the Cedar Grove mother later took her son to a private clinic where the pin was extracted without invasive surgery on Sunday.
The child reportedly returned to school yesterday.
