March 11, 2023
I continue to grieve the loss of my only son, Peter, who died of a sudden heart attack last June in Singapore when only 49 years.
My grief is very difficult to deal with all of the time making it hard or impossible to think about anything other than his loss.
I image the same for any parents in the Solomon Islands that have lost their loved ones and I especially think about parents that lost a child still born after the normal 9 months delivery period.
I can't imagine the grief a mother goes through after a full pregnancy to find her child delivered still born.
Some many months ago I wrote of a practice at the NRH of a still born child being handed to the grieving parents in a simple cardboard box.
I suggested that a wooden, plastic or cane coffin be used to hand over a still born child to its parents but I have never been informed if my suggestion has been adopted at the NRH.
If what I consider and inhuman and abhorrent practice of returning the body of a still born child to its parents in a carboard box is still being carried out, then please do everything possible to stop the practice because the grief of the parents can only be harder to deal with; grief I know only too well.
Yours sincerely
Frank Short
