A paediatrician has raised concerns over the death of a baby girl who is reported to have died of natural causes, telling that this explanation ?does not make sense.?

Dr. Olutoyin Fayemi spoke out as it emerged yesterday that the five-month-old who died at King Edward VII Memorial Hospital on Tuesday had previously been treated there for a broken skull after she fell out of a truck in October, although he added there was no link between the skull injury and her death because of the length of time between the two incidents. understands that there had been past concerns over the welfare of the child.

Child protection campaigner Sheelagh Cooper yesterday questioned whether Child and Family Services did enough to ensure that the child received adequate monitoring and medical care in the months between the truck incident and her death.

The baby was admitted to KEMH around 1 a.m on Tuesday suffering from respiratory distress, treated and discharged. She was readmitted in a worsened condition later in the morning and died, said Dr. Fayemi.

A specialist team of forensic paediatric pathologists from the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto conducted an autopsy on the baby on Wednesday. This, said Coroner?s Officer Insp. Phil Taylor yesterday, indicated that the child had died of ?natural causes?. He declined to give any further details but said an inquest into the death will not be held.

Dr. Fayemi, who treated the child after it fell from the truck along with its mother last year, said that in his opinion the investigation of the death ?should be taken further?.

?This is not normal. It doesn?t make sense. People who are 70 or 80 years old die of natural causes,? he said.

?If this child died from something like a congenital heart condition, that is not a natural cause. A child of this age would die if either they were very sick, had some kind of congenital anomaly or a trauma.?

The doctor, who works at Edgewood Paediatrics in Paget, did not treat the baby in the emergency room or ICU when it was admitted on Tuesday and has not seen a copy of the autopsy report.

However, he said that from what he knew of examinations in the emergency room on Tuesday there was no indication that the child had a congenital heart anomaly. And he said it was also ?way too late? after the skull fracture for the death to be linked to that.

?I think it?s important to find out what this child died of and whether it was anything that could have been prevented,? he said.

?I can?t tell you with any certainty what the people who did the autopsy found but ?natural causes? usually implies that someone died and they don?t know why at this age.?

Dr. Fayemi confirmed that Child and Family Services had been involved with the child after the truck incident but said he did not know whether they continued to be involved. He said that he had not seen the child since the truck incident and that he understood that inquiries were being made into whether the child was seen by some other Government clinic.

Coalition for the Protection of Children chairman Sheelagh Cooper said she too had heard of past welfare concerns after news of the death emerged this week.

She told she understood that Child and Family Services had been mandated with watching the baby after the truck incident.

?The baby was supposed to have follow-up visits to the doctor after it was injured in the fall from the truck. The mother did not bring the baby in for those and that was overlooked by Child and Family Services,? she claimed.

?There should have been very close monitoring of this child. I just hope that this baby?s death was not as a result of a lack of follow-up care.?

A Police spokesman declined to comment yesterday when asked if there was any Police investigation into the death. A spokeswoman for King Edward VII Memorial Hospital refused to comment. No one from Child and Family Services could be reached by press time.