Latest update December 2nd, 2024 1:00 AM
Jul 03, 2010 News
“I can safely say that whatever are the recommendations made by the Committee, I have instructed the Chief Medical Officer to implement them,” said Minister of Health, Dr Leslie Ramsammy.
The Minister was at the time commenting on the status of the investigation into the maternal death of 38-year-old Waheeda Basil, who died after giving birth at the West Demerara Regional Hospital last May.
It was after an internal investigation was completed that the matter was referred to the expert committee by Chief Medical Officer (CMO), Dr Shamdeo Persaud, for further investigation. According to Minister Ramsammy, the expert committee has since conducted its investigation which will determine the way forward in the matter.
“We are now awaiting the committee’s recommendation. I think they have 28 days in which to do so.
When I spoke with the CMO last, he said he was awaiting a report from the Committee,” Minister Ramsammy told this newspaper during a recent interview with this newspaper.
According to him, the committee consists of medical experts from both the private and public sectors but noted that the investigation was not limited to the members alone.
The members of the committee, he said had the privilege to invite other expert persons to aid the process.
The committee, according to the Minister, will ultimately have the final say in the whole investigation as he has opted to instruct the Chief Doctor to implement the recommendations that are forthcoming.
It was during the latter part of May that hospital officials had submitted their report on the maternal death to the CMO who had reviewed it and who recognised that further investigation was necessary.
Minister Ramsammy, at that point, had offered his suspicions that the CMO had found sufficient evidence to suggest that the maternal death was not a normal one. “Based on a note I got from the CMO I believe that he has found enough for us to look into this matter.
Once an investigation is called for it usually means that we are not satisfied that the hospital did everything it could.”
As such, the Minister had revealed that Dr Persaud would have been tasked with streamlining the external investigation.
This move was characterised by the CMO’s requesting the intervention of the expert committee, whose members are not a part of the West Demerara Hospital to undertake a thorough investigation.
They were expected to meticulously follow the processes that were undertaken from the time that the patient was admitted to the time of her death.
However, the Minister had asserted that though the need for an external investigation was warranted no one was being held culpable, a state of affairs which could change should the expert committee so recommends.
“Though there seems to be a need for us to do our own investigation this doesn’t mean that anybody has done something wrong.
Whenever a death occurs we regret it and we always investigate to ascertain that nothing was overlooked in the whole process but we don’t just accuse anybody of wrong doing without a thorough investigation,” the Minister asserted.
However, there have been reports that the maternal death could have been prevented had warning signs been adhered to. Dr Persaud had earlier speculated that the woman’s death could have been due to underlying cardiac problems which may have gone unrecognised.
He had noted that although the patient, Waheeda Basil, of De Willem, West Coast Demerara, was 38 years of age it appears that there was no detection of the condition during the course of her pregnancy.
However, he had noted that this conclusion can only be ascertained after a thorough investigation into the matter concludes.
And even while he was in possession of a preliminary report, Dr Persaud had revealed that the Hospital’s Committee was still investigating the matter. According to him, hospital officials had informed him of the maternal death about 24 hours after it occurred and had subsequently furnished him with the report.
This newspaper was reliably informed that the woman who was previously a patient of the Meten-Meer-Zorg Health Centre was advised to travel to the West Demerara Regional Hospital after experiencing labour pains the same day.
The woman was so advised, this newspaper learnt, because her delivery was even then seen as a high-risk one, a situation which was hinged on the fact that she had last given birth some 13 years earlier and that she was very obese.
Accompanied by her husband, Deonarine Basil, the woman was admitted at the Regional Hospital and reports are that she safely gave birth to her third child. However, it was revealed that shortly after giving birth, the woman started complaining of dizziness and died before the source of her dilemma could be ascertained.
A source close to the operation of the hospital revealed that the woman bled for nearly one hour before a doctor who was summoned arrived to attend to her.
However, a senior official at the hospital in an invited comment had assured that “everything that could have been done was done to save this woman’s life.
The husband was there and he knows that the nurses and the doctors did everything that was possible.”
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