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Health Ministry, Medical Council to hold seminar for maternal care

Feb 16, 2010 News

– In wake of Linden and West Dem. Hospital deaths

By Michael Jordan
The Ministry of Health, in collaboration with the Guyana Medical Council, will on February 28, be holding a one-day seminar that officials hope will lead to improved treatment of maternal patients and fewer maternal deaths.
Several physicians are expected to attend the seminar. An overseas-based obstetrician will make one of the eight presentations to participants.
The Health Ministry and Medical Council will also prepare a manual on management protocol for physicians countrywide.
The seminar will be a quarterly event but a health official said that this one is focusing on maternal care because of the recent deaths of maternal patients, Tricia Winth and Salima Ram at the Linden Hospital Complex and the West Dem Hospital respectively.
An investigation by the Maternal Mortality Review Committee (MMRC) found that the staff who treated Winth and Ram made several errors and failed to provide adequate treatment for the two high-risk maternal patients.
The reports were turned over to the Guyana Medical Council, which plans to question a foreign consultant and the doctors who were involved in the two cases.
However, a Health official suggested that the junior physicians are unlikely to face any harsh punishment, since they should not have been left to treat the two patients without supervision.
Winth, 35, died at the Linden Hospital Complex on December 27, 2009, while Ram succumbed at the West Demerara Regional Hospital on December 29, 2009.
Post mortem examinations showed that both women were suffering from Pregnancy Induced Hypertension (PIH), but were not treated for the life-threatening condition.
In the case of Winth, the MMRC report stated that the staff failed to recognise the symptoms of Pregnancy Induced Hypertension.
Although Winth would have required Caesarean surgery, she was admitted to the Linden Complex, which did not have a functioning operating theatre at the time.
In the report on Salima Ram’s death, the MMRC treated her for a minor ailment rather than for the life-threatening Pregnancy Induced Hypertension from which she was suffering and which caused her death.
The absence of an obstetrician consultant and the lack of a functioning operating theatre at the institution also contributed to Ram’s demise.

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