PENANG: A two-month-old baby girl died of brain haemorrhage, which police believe could have been caused by either a fall or abuse, a day after being admitted to a private hospital.
Tan Win Nee, daughter of DAP assistant publicity secretary Tan Hun Wooi, succumbed to her injuries at 5.50pm on Thursday.
A post-mortem by pathologist Dr Bhupinder Singh yesterday showed that there was internal haemorrhage.
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BRAIN HAEMORRHAGE: Two-month-old Win Nee succumbed to her injuries. |
George Town CID chief Supt Hasnan Hassan said police did not rule out the possibility that the baby had been abused, adding that the babysitter would need to be interviewed before they could come to that conclusion.
There was also bruising on the baby’s left ear. Her father said he had noticed the bruise after picking her up from the babysitter’s apartment in Relau about 5pm on Tuesday.
“I asked the babysitter what had happened and she told me that the bruise could have been caused by sleeping sideways for too long. I then brought her home and at 10pm, my wife found out that she had a fever.
“We took her to a children’s clinic in Gottlieb Road where a doctor diagnosed her as having a throat infection.
She was given some medicine and subsequently taken home,” he said.
Tan, an accountant by profession, added that the next day, he sent his daughter to the babysitter at 8am as usual and two hours later received a call telling him that Win Nee had fallen into a coma.
“The baby was immediately sent to a private hospital in Bayan Baru where she was treated. She was then transferred to another private hospital as the earlier one did not have the equipment to conduct a CAT scan.
“The scan later showed there was fluid in her brain which had caused her brain to swell.
The doctor decided to wait overnight to see if the swelling would subside,” he said.
Tan, who was met at the Penang Hospital mortuary, added that the doctor drained the fluid on Thursday morning to relieve the pressure on the brain when the swelling failed to go down.
“My first born was then put on life support after the surgery. Her condition did not improve and she died later that evening without regaining consciousness,” he said.
