Mother, baby die at GPHC

Nov 18, 2010 News

– Second maternal death in less than 36 hours

By Latoya Giles
Just 36 hours after Miriam Bristol died while delivering a baby girl at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation, officials there are investigating the death of yet another expectant mother at the same institution.
The victim this time is 25-year-old Monica Carmichael of Number 28 Village, West Coast Berbice. She died yesterday, one day after under going caesarian. The baby was still birth.

Dead: Monica Carmichael

Contacted last night, Director of Medical Services GPHC, Dr Madan Rambarran, said that he could only confirm that there had been another maternal death at the institution.
Dr. Rambarran also would not say whether there is an obstetrician at the hospital.
Avril Carmichael, the dead woman’s grandmother, told Kaieteur News that relatives were informed about the death after their numerous calls to the woman’s mobile phone went unanswered.
“After we calling her….it was the doctor who told us something bad happen.”
Ms. Carmichael told Kaieteur News that her granddaughter was transferred from the New Amsterdam Hospital on Friday.
The dead woman’s aunt, Marsha Carmichael, told Kaieteur News last evening that officials at the New Amsterdam hospital informed the family that the baby was in danger and would have to be delivered prematurely and placed in an incubator if there would be any chance of the baby surviving.
According to the grandmother, doctors did an ultrasound on Monday and said that they did not detect the baby’s heartbeat.
“After she tell me they ain’t feeling no heartbeat….I tell she to tell the doctors let them take the baby out. The baby probably poisoned her…” the grandmother said.
The woman said that her granddaughter told her that one doctor said that he has to get a second opinion, even though he wasn’t getting any heartbeat.
Mrs. Carmichael said that her granddaughter was only taken to the operating theatre yesterday around 15:30hrs.
Kaieteur News was told that the young mother spent almost all of Tuesday night in the operating theatre.
Monica Carmichael was wheeled out into the maternity ward where relatives saw her. Two relatives, who saw the expectant mother around noon, yesterday said that she was complaining of severe abdominal pains.
The woman’s relatives left but continued to keep in constant contact with her.
Around 16:00hrs, when the grandmother’s calls went unanswered, relatives said that they immediately knew that something was wrong.
The grandmother said that when she called the fourth time, a male answered the phone and identified himself as the doctor.
“He said he was the doctor and someone should come to the hospital because something bad happened.”
The dead woman’s aunt, Marsha, said the family was called to the hospital last evening and were informed that the woman suffered two seizures before she died. Nurses at the hospital told the family that when the woman had the first seizure, they were able to control it, but the second attack they could not.
Only Tuesday morning Miriam Bristol, 38, of 47 Miles Mabura Upper Demerara River died at the GPHC, minutes after delivering a healthy baby girl.
The woman’s reputed husband, Glen Williams, alleged that his wife was initially admitted to the Linden Hospital Complex last week Tuesday.
In recent months, there have been an alarming number of maternal deaths at the GPHC, the Skeldon and New Amsterdam Hospitals.
Some medical sources believe that the lack of experienced staff at the institutions is a contributing factor, and warn that there will be more deaths if the situation is not rectified.
“You can only stop the deaths at the GPHC and at those hospitals around the country when you get an obstetrician working at these places on a daily basis,” one medical official said.
“Without such help there will be deaths all the time.”
In a press statement yesterday, the GPHC said that the institution is grappling with the recent maternal deaths.
“The medical staff battle tirelessly to preserve the lives of the mothers and their newborn, and in some cases the deaths are unfortunate and unavoidable and in some instances, complications develop wherein, there is nothing the best physician or state of the art facility can do to reverse the situation,” the release stated.
Only last month, a nurse who was attached to the hospital, Charlene Amsterdam, died there two days after a caesarian section was performed.
According to Director of Medical Services, of the Georgetown Hospital Dr. Madan Rambarran, no one was found negligent in Amsterdam’s death.