Sask. baby had flesh-eating disease: family

A family from Moosomin First Nation near North Battleford, Sask., has questions after a baby girl became ill from what they say was flesh-eating disease.

Ameera, who's 10 months old,  is recovering in a Saskatoon hospital, but her family wants to know why she was discharged from Battlefords Union Hospital in North Battleford even though they say she was still sick.

Glenda Martin, the baby's great-aunt, and a nurse with the Battlefords Tribal Council, said she received a panicked call from the mother, Cindy Netmaker, on April 1. Netmaker and the baby had been to see doctors in North Battleford and had stayed in hospital for several days, but the child was given antibiotics and sent home, Martin said.

"Auntie, my baby was discharged from the hospital this morning and I don't think she should've been," Martin said Netmaker told her.

The mother said her baby still had a fever and was crying a lot.

Martin convinced her niece to bring the infant to see her. When they arrived, Netmaker also showed her a photo of the baby taken on her cellphone.

"The flesh literally had holes in it and it was red and there was tissue around it that was white and yellow and red," Martin said. "It was just awful."

She told her niece to take the baby to Saskatoon for treatment. Ameera is now on the mend at Royal University Hospital in Saskatoon.

Hospital officials in North Battleford have offered to meet with the family and will conduct an investigation, said Barbara Jiricka, who's the vice-president of integrated health services with the North Prairie Health Region

"In the minds of the ER physicians and the health-care provider staff, they're going over in their minds reviewing what they did, what was done, what they could have done differently perhaps," Jiricka said. "We'll be going over that with them."

Because necrotizing fasciitis, or flesh-eating disease, can be spread by physical contact, members of Netmaker's extended family who had contact with the baby have all had precautionary shots.

Martin, meanwhile, said the family is still looking for answers from Battlefords Union Hospital.

"What's the followup going to be to stop this from happening to other children?" Martin said. "[Cindy Netmaker] had a voice and persistence, and we can speak out. What happens to those who don't have that voice or that strength or those resources?"