There is a room at the mortuary of the San Fernando General Hospital, that will break your heart. In it you will find green paper-wrapped forms that you may mistake for baby dolls. You would be wrong. These are babies, delivered dead, or dying shortly after delivery, some taken from the mother prematurely because of a medical complication. Each is a loss to a parent too personal to explain. Many of these tiny bodies are destined for a pauper's burial, the babies left in the care of the State by families trying to forget and heal after a pregnancy that ended tragically. Queron Cardinal, of Cap de Ville, Point Fortin, is one of the parents whose baby boy died at birth. However, he chose to take the baby from the mortuary and give him a funeral last Thursday. Cardinal, the father of two daughters, said the last rites was his responsibility and he wanted to give a "proper" goodbye. Cardinal blames the State's failure to construct the new Point Fortin hospital, for the child's death, two weeks ago. Cardinal said his wife, Sunita Lochan, went into premature labour and delivered a still-born baby at the San Fernando General Hospital. Lochan began experiencing labour pains on the morning of October 3. Her baby was delivered dead the same day. Cardinal said: "I knew the Point Fortin hospital don't do deliveries so when she went into labour I didn't bother to go there. I started to drive straight to the San Fernando Hospital. Her water-bag broke when I reached La Brea and she started to bleed. When we got to the hospital doctors were not getting a heartbeat from the baby. She was seven months' pregnant and before that, the baby was moving around." Cardinal was looking forward to the birth of his first son, whom he named Syon. "I can't believe this has happened. If we had a proper hospital in Point Fortin, I would have taken my wife there and she would have been treated immediately. I had to go through that morning traffic to get to San Fernando. And the frightening part is that we not sure if they really going to build it this time around," he said. Lochan, 25, underwent emergency surgery following the delivery and was a patient at the hospital's High Dependency Unit for three days. She was released last week. Cardinal said of his baby: "I saw him after he was born. They put on a diaper and vest for him. He didn't look dead." Last month, Shari Sakawat-Karim

died at the San Fernando General Hospital after delivering her first child at the Point Fortin Area Hospital the day before. The child was stillborn.

There have been several protests recently led by Point Fortin Mayor Clyde Paul demanding that Government begin building the new hospital.

In response, chief executive officer of the South West Regional Health Authority (SWRHA) Anil Gosine said last week the Authority was completing a user brief for the proposed Point Fortin Hospital.

He said the user brief would contain information about what was needed for the medical facility. And he said there was staff at the maternity ward at Point Fortin Hospital.

Gosine said: "We have high-risk cases coming up to San Fernando and normal deliveries taking place down there. We are putting measures in place to have that situation rectified in Point Fortin."

Government has promised that construction on the hospital will begin this year.

Cardinal's wife can no longer have children and he lamented that he will never get the son he wanted. So last Thursday, after a ceremony at the chapel of the Elite Funeral Home in Point Fortin, the parents helped bury their son's tiny coffin at the Cap de Ville public ceremony.