NEW YORK – As the mother of a newborn, Consuelo Saravia worries like most mothers for her little one. But it was Nikko’s time in the NICU at Good Samaritan Hospital in West Islip that shook her.
“It was heartbreaking,” Saravia said. “I couldn’t stop crying, I couldn’t even sleep.”
The baby was just two days old and was in the NICU for observation as doctors gave her antibiotics. Nikko’s father, Fidel Sinclair, went to see him and saw him crying through the nursery window.
She decided to take a video of her new baby, when she captured the unthinkable: a nurse appears to be jerking Nikko off, turning him over and slamming him head-on into the crib.
“I don’t know, it just broke me,” Sinclair said. “I did not know what to do”.
He showed the video to Saravia who confronted the nurse.
“I said to him, ‘I don’t want you to touch my son! You just hit it,” Saravia recalled of the conversation. “She said, ‘Oh no, if you think I mistreated him or something, I’m sorry. “
Consuelo showed the video to the other nurses and administrators. Catholic Health, which runs Good Samaritan, told our sister network NBC New York that “upon learning of this incident, prompt and immediate action was taken, including conducting an investigation and accordingly firing the individual involved. In addition, we have reported the individual to the Department of Health for further review. Ensuring the safety of our patients remains our primary concern.”
“There were a lot of babies there and I felt like it happened to Nikko, who else did it happen to?” asked Sinclair, who also said, “It makes me Seems a waste that in a room like this they have all the curtains closed.” .
Sinclair was lucky the curtain was up enough to see her son and record what happened, especially since the parents say there were no security cameras in that room.
We asked Catholic Health about the curtains and they replied, “It is standard procedure to have curtains drawn in the NICU to ensure privacy for patients and their families and because the services are administered at the patient’s bedside. Immediate family members can enter the neonatal ICU. neighborhood to spend time with loved ones.
The state Department of Health told our sister network NBC New York that it takes this “troubling accusation” seriously. As this is an open investigation, the department cannot comment further. All hospital complaints are kept confidential and at the end of an investigation, the outcome is shared with the complainant.”
Suffolk Police say they are not investigating because no one has filed a report yet, but NBC New York informed them of this video.
Baby Nikko is fine at home, but Sinclair is grateful that he decided to see his son when he did.
“If God hadn’t sent me to watch her, we never would have seen anything,” Sinclair said. “And it would have continued to happen overnight, not just for him, but for the other babies as well.”