'I used to trust them': Family shattered after 6-month-old baby dies at Winnipeg Children's Hospital

Lu Teng approaches the living room window where his baby boy would peer out, looking for any sign of his father waving back.

Now when Lu returns from work, his boy — named Luca, which means brightness — isn't there anymore.

"I used to trust them with everything," he said of the health-care system, "but right now in my mind, I think they killed Luca.

"It's not a certain person — the whole system, the hospital."

Lu took his six-month-old son to Winnipeg's Children's Hospital in mid-January, believing the emergency department was the right place to help his child. Ten hours later, his baby was taken into surgery and died.

Luca waited for hours at the Children's Hospital after an X-ray appeared to show a hole in his esophagus.

However, health officials told the family the response was timely based on what they knew about the boy's condition.

Luca was born last July with esophageal atresia, a condition in which the esophagus and stomach aren't connected.

He had complex but successful surgery two days after his birth, and returned to hospital Jan. 12 for what had become a routine procedure, a dilation, which stretched out the narrow areas of his esophagus to make it easier to swallow food.

Luca endured this procedure seven times before, but this one was different: while being fed afterward, he started choking, his father said.

"I told the nurse, 'This is uncommon,'" he said.

But his son was still discharged.

Luca returned home, was fed again and the problems continued. He wouldn't stop coughing. He had no bowel movements.

Something was amiss, his parents thought, and Luca was rushed back to the Children's Hospital around 6 p.m.