Stillborn baby not buried for months over hospital confusion
A Queens hospital’s confusion over what to do with the remains of a stillborn baby boy, has renewed the parents’ anguish five months later.
Michael Angel Rodriguez was delivered stillborn at the Katz Women’s Hospital at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in Queens on Jan. 6 and to this day has not been buried, say parents Kelis and Neal Rodriguez of Howard Beach.
Kelis had been admitted on Christmas Day 2017 with life-threatening pregnancy-related complications, Neal said. By the time Michael was delivered, she had been there for 12 days at staggering out-of-pocket expense.
So when staff asked if the family wanted to pay for a private funeral or have his body interred at no cost in the city’s potter’s field on Hart Island, they made the tough choice of having a city burial.
“All my attention was focused on my wife — I wanted to get her back on her feet,” said Neal, a retired Navy veteran-turned-web consultant.
They thought all was settled until LIJ called on April 26 saying the baby wasn’t eligible for city burial.
“I started crying,” Kelis told The Post. “It was like it just happened. It brings everything back. We’ve been trying to move forward.”
The city medical examiner’s office said families can request city burial, no matter “the decedent’s age.”
An LIJ rep said the hospital mistakenly said Michael was ineligible and “we apologize for any miscommunication or misunderstanding.”