WITH A cracking voice and strangled sobs struggling to escape between words, Rochelle Grandison's grief was clear yesterday, as she mourned for her 22-year-old son, Jamaica's first fatality since the outbreak of the Influenza A (H1N1) virus.

Speaking from her home in Brooklyn, United States, Grandison's overwhelming agony seemed to be made much more acute by what she characterised as the stonewall that has greeted her in the aftermath of her son Kareem-Jabar Nathaniel Leiba's untimely death.

Unbearable

Leiba, who turned 22 on June 16, reportedly succumbed to the H1N1 virus at the Tony Thwaites Wing of the University Hospital of the West Indies on Monday. Minister of Health Rudyard Spencer has ordered a probe into his death.

However, to the distraught mother, the wait for information to bring a sense of closure has been unbearable.

"I am not doing very well," she told The Gleaner, stressing that she was was not at this point disputing the cause of her son's death.

Grandison complained, however, that she was finding it difficult to obtain basic information on the death of her son because local health personnel had been tight-lipped on the matter.

Yesterday, Spencer was off the island and Dr Grace Allen-Young was unavailable for comment as, throughout the day, she was said to be in a meeting.

Un-founded speculation

Grandison lamented that the lack of information was fuelling un-founded speculation.

"I don't know, I just want it (the speculation) to stop. We (the family) want an autopsy, then we will have the answers we need," said Grandison.

The grieving mother appealed to the authorities to say something, if only to help ease the pain the family now feels.

"I am not saying that he did not die from H1N1, but I am Kareem's mother. Just give me the information that you have ... Where did he contract it?" she asked.

"It's not a matter of not believing ... but please understand a mother's pain. If the matter is being probed, how is it that nobody can say anything definitively? Please tell me something! There are too many unanswered questions and everyone is drawing their conclusion," begged the mother.

Grandison was particularly concerned for Leiba's paternal grandmother, with whom the young man had lived since childhood.

"I think it is unfair for his grandmother to be grieving so. He loved her more than anything in the world," the weeping mother declared.

"He was the apple of her eye. They lived between Miami and Jamaica, they did everything together."

She revealed that she had not seen her son in a while, but they spoke with each other quite frequently.

Grandison said she was initially told of her son's condition by his aunt and her older sister.

"I was told that he was not feeling well and had gone to two doctors before going to (another doctor) last Thursday."

She said he appeared to be responding to the treatment but took a turn for the worse on Friday when, about two o' clock, he told his grandmother he was not feeling well as he was having problems breathing.

Grandison said Leiba was taken to the Spanish Town Hospital, but later that day family members decided to relocate him to the Tony Thwaites Wing of the University Hospital.

He was transferred late that night into early Saturday morning.

By midday, Leiba was dead. Grandison said it was the wish of the family that he be buried in the family plot but, with information lacking, the family is encountering numerous obstacles.

In the meantime, schools across the parish of Manchester can now return to business as usual as the ban imposed by the Ministry of Education last month has been lifted.

In a release to the media yesterday, the education ministry stated that the decision to lift the ban was made after consultations with the Ministry of Health.

gary.spaulding@gleanerjm.com