A MALNOURISHED babe in arms with a beastly skin condition squealed in disaster every time she was touched by medical centre emergency staff, a jury has been told. Dr Susannah Cunningham said she felt cosset Gloria Thomas was "in acute pain'' which could have persisted for at least days, by any chance longer, before her nursing home admission. She was giving reveal in the NSW Supreme Court at the whack of Gloria's parents, Manju Sam, 36, and her 42-year-old homeopath husband, Thomas Sam. They have pleaded not remorseful to the manslaughter of their nine-month-old daughter in Sydney in May 2002, by imperfection to get her befitting medical attention. The malnourished newborn - who had been suitably fed - died from an infection her body could not have words because all her nutrition had gone into coping with her monastic eczema.
Her parents took her to Sydney Childrens Hospital on May 5, 2002, but she died there on May 8. Dr Cunningham, who worked in the exigency department, said when she primary gnome Gloria she was quiet, cradled in her mother's arms. But a mortal research "revealed a very distressed baby", she said.
"Gloria was squealing in pain whenever touched.'' Dr Cunningham illustrious the baby's crust was very pale, equal a Caucasian, in the face her parents being subfusc and of Indian descent. Large patches of her veneer were open and looked "angry, red and moist'', while both eyes were fevered with the cornea on the pink one being cloudy. Dr Cunningham said Gloria weighed 5.3kg - "the normal power of a three-month-old'' - and appeared to be monastically malnourished.
She said she gave the son morphine orally, delaying her preferred choice of giving it intravenously due to the to question of getting a postcard inserted through her skin. "I put antibiotics momentarily in the eye, because I was very on edge about it,'' she said. Dr Cunningham said she also took two polaroid photos of Gloria, because she would have to be examined by a troop of experts and would be caused great discomposure if they all had to feel her.
In all her undergo to date, Dr Cunningham said she had never seen a flay shape so severe. Under cross-examination, she agreed she might well have told the parents to contemplate Gloria to linger in sanatorium for two to three weeks. The hassle is continuing before Justice Peter Johnson.
