New Parents Desperate to Find Answers for Sick Infant

For any parent, there’s nothing more terrifying than watching your child in pain while doctors struggle to explain what’s wrong. That’s the nightmare facing new parents Deondra Samuels and Kemar Ferguson, whose eighteen‑month‑old son, baby Kemar, has spent months slipping in and out of hospitals with a mystery illness no one in the system can diagnose. What started as a routine fever back in November has spiraled into repeated admissions, transfusions, and a level of uncertainty no family should have to navigate alone. And after multiple visits to the K.H.M.H., his parents say they’ve been told the specialists needed to identify his condition simply aren’t available in Belize. Tonight, they’re not pointing fingers, they’re pleading for answers. A mother and father desperate for clarity as their little boy grows weaker and time becomes a luxury they no longer feel they have. News Five’s Shane Williams spoke with the family as they continue their search for a diagnosis, and for hope.

 

Deondra Samuels, Mother

“It start last November. He had a high fever from a Thursday to a Friday. And we come out Monday, went to the clinic in Ladyville. They just gave us Tylenol and the flu medication, stating it was flu. Then we went back because he had a tummy ache. They did some just normal routine touching his tummy and said nothing else. They did a blood test. Blood test came back and his blood was at five. That same day they referred us straight to KHMH and we were admitted there for two weeks and they run multiple tests and all of them out negative. They told us that Belize cannot diagnose the baby. He need a special doctor for the blood, which da hematologist and they only are in Cancun, Merida and now they supposed to have one in Chetumal.”

 

Kemar Ferguson, Father

“It’s been hard because like coming home, seeing him like he just weak. He can’t, like you go a morning and he all live and thing and so like he just active and then you come home, he just sad and noh want move and so. And like you want do the most, but you can’t do anything.”

 

 Deondra Samuels

“With the platelets and the blood ih get significant weight loss. Even though he eat, he still lose a lot of weight. Because of those,  he have an enlarged spleen, kidney and liver at the moment. So his stomach is very extended and every day he constantly in pain.”

 

Shane Williams

“How many times have you been to the hospital?”

 

Deondra Samuels

“We were admitted in November, December, January and February. And in between those we go sometime in the evening and then we get stay in emergency, then just get discharged from emergency. And every time we do go to the hospital, within those time, he either had to get transfused for blood or transfuse for platelets.”

 

The family’s next fundraiser will be a food sale at the Double Head Village stop of the La Ruta Maya Race.