Latest update January 17th, 2025 6:30 AM
17-year-old dies after giving birth
Tandica Williams
Debra Armstrong, the mother of a 17-year-old girl who died four days after giving birth at the Georgetown Public Hospital, is calling for justice to prevail as she is convinced that negligence was evident on the part of hospital officials.
Last evening, the distraught Armstrong of Lot 6 D’Aguiar Street, Meadow Bank, Georgetown, recounted that her daughter, Tandica Williams, had a normal pregnancy. According to the woman, her daughter started to experience labour pains last Friday night and was taken to the public hospital where she was admitted in anticipation of her delivery.
On Saturday, the labour pains continued, the woman said. A nurse had informed her (Armstrong) that Williams should give birth before the end of the day, she added. And indeed just before midnight Williams gave birth to a healthy baby boy.
However, Armstrong said that she was informed that the medical officials had some difficulties removing the placenta from her daughter.
“She (Williams) tell me that some fat nurse was using her knee to press her stomach area to help remove the afterbirth…but like not everything come down. She said that the nurse said that she had to do that before it (afterbirth) fly up and kill she.”
Williams appeared to be well enough and was discharged on Tuesday. However, Armstrong said that her daughter developed a dreadful pain in her stomach area, a development which saw her being re-admitted to the hospital later that day.
“She came home walking and everything was good but this morning early (yesterday morning) she started crying out for this pain in she stomach. So I say no sense I keep her here because I is not a doctor or a nurse.”
Armstrong said that upon her daughter’s admission to the hospital an x-ray was done and a decision was made to monitor her closely. The woman said that she confidently left her daughter in the care of the hospital officials around 05:00 hours. It was around 09:00 hours yesterday that she got a call from her daughter who was requesting to come home.
“She just tell me she want me come now, now, now. So I go back and I see she. She was just delirious talking all sorts of madness. I tell she I can’t carry she home like this…I seh the doctors here and they can look at you.”
Soon after, Armstrong recounted that she learnt that her daughter’s heart stopped. This saw medical officials engaging an urgent battle to revive her. The woman said that her daughter was taken to the Intensive Care Unit. Her efforts to find out about her daughter’s condition were fruitless until a doctor advised her to speak with a nurse.
“I ask the nurse how is she and she seh that she coming to come so I said okay. She tell me go home and rest and take care of the baby and she would call me if anything happens.”
It was around 19:30 hours yesterday, a tearful Armstrong said, that she received a telephone call from the nurse informing her that her child was dead. No reason for her death was offered at the time, the woman added.
But according to Williams’ aunt, Josephine Armstrong, she arrived soon after her niece’s demise and observed her lifeless and swollen body on a bed. The woman recalled that she saw a pan of blood nearby and proceeded to pick up her niece’s belongings after she was told she was dead.
“I see my niece. She had a tube with cotton wool in her mouth and her neck, face and right arm were swollen…she was just about 100 pounds and if you see how she swell…I ask the nurse what is the meaning of this and she say I have to speak with the doctor. So I said ok.”
However, Debra Armstrong said that she later learnt from the doctor that her daughter had developed an internal infection.
As such the family is calling for an investigation to determine the actual cause of death.
The Georgetown Public Hospital will be approached for comments on the issue.
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