Private physicians craft plan to reduce maternal deaths at GPHC

Dec 18, 2010 News

By Michael Jordan
A group of private physicians has crafted a plan to reduce the spate of maternal deaths, now at their highest in at least two decades.
The group is focusing particularly on the Georgetown Public Hospital, with the aim of getting a Consultant/obstetrician on staff, and increasing the number of junior doctors at the GPHC.
Kaieteur News understands that an official from the United Nations has indicated that the UN may help pay the salary of an overseas obstetrician.

Charlene Amsterdam

The physicians have recommended that the consultant be recruited from a Caricom country, partly because of the language problems that non-English speaking staffers have presented in the past.
Kaieteur News was told that the doctors have also recommended that the GPHC’s operation theatre be ready to deal with maternal emergencies around the clock.
“There should be 24-hour theatre time allotted to maternity patients to speed up the time it takes to get patients to the theatre,” an official explained.
The group has also recommended that eight junior doctors be placed in the Maternity Department for an extended period.
They also suggested that a training programme be set up mainly for maternal staff in outlying areas.
In the interim, the private physicians gave their commitment to assist at the GPHC.
An official confirmed that former Medical Council Chairman Dr. Galton Roberts, who has a private practice, has been working at the GPHC with the junior staff, while assisting in re-organising the maternity department.
Dr. Roberts has been a gynecologist/consultant with some 25 years’ experience in the field of obstetrics.
An official told Kaieteur News last night the GPHC officials have already begun to put some of these recommendations in place.
This newspaper was also told that four junior doctors were deployed to the Maternity Department on Thursday.
The GPHC officials have reportedly agreed to have the other four junior doctors deployed there soon.
An official revealed that the private physicians met with the GPHC officials about three weeks ago, after two more maternity patients died at the hospital.
Those at the meeting included Chief Executive Officer Michael Khan, Director of Medical Services Dr. Madan Rambarran, and the GPHC Matron and staff of the Maternity Department.
The private sector physicians included Dr. Guy Lowe, Dr. Galton Roberts and a physician from the Dr. Balwant Singh Hospital.
“After the last two deaths, some of the doctors from the private sector had a meeting with the CEO and the staff of the GPHC to discuss the maternity situation and try to lend help,” an official explained.
Focusing on some of the problems at the GPHC maternity department, an official said that the GPHC was “devoid of consultant/obstetrician staff.
“They have one Chinese obstetrician on staff who cannot communicate with the staff properly, and while they have a junior staffer trained in China and who speaks Chinese, this does not help (the situation),” the source said.
Another obstetrician, who is an Indian national, reportedly left about two months ago and is not expected back until January.
There is also an Angolan (the Registrar) and there was a Nigerian physician who was recently fired for demanding money from patients.
In addition, the department has a Guyanese physician with seven months’ post-internship experience.

The source said that the department also has about four interns and young doctors who are rotated to other departments.
Dealing with the limitations in the operating theatre, the official revealed that it took staff some 65 minutes to move Ingra Nieuenkirk (who died last Wednesday) from the maternity ward to the operating theatre, and about 63 minutes more for the anesthetist to get to the operating theatre.
However, the official believes that the maternity patient succumbed because of the severe bleeding she suffered during her journey from the Linden Hospital Complex to the GPHC.
You can’t take a severely bleeding patient and drive down the highway…” the official said.
Nieuenkirk, a 23-year-old mother from Linden, succumbed hours after delivering a stillborn at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC).
The woman’s death raised questions as to why she was brought to Georgetown instead of having her surgery at the Linden Hospital Theatre.
Kurwyn Greene, the woman’s reputed husband, explained that Nieuenkirk began experiencing labour pains on Tuesday around 23:00hrs. He assisted in taking her to the Linden Hospital Complex.
Minutes after his wife’s admission, Greene said nurses told him that they failed to receive any signs that the baby was alright.
“They (nurses) told me they weren’t getting heartbeat…so they have to transfer her to the Georgetown Hospital,” Greene explained.
He claims that it was the nurses who were doing everything, and a doctor only came after 45 minutes to the hospital – only after being summoned by the same nurses. The man further told this publication that Nieuenkirk left the Linden Hospital Complex some time around 03:45hrs on Wednesday.
Upon her arrival at GPHC she was immediately rushed to the operating theatre.
“She was bleeding….but she was still talking to me,” Greene recounted.
Greene said he was told by the nurses that he should go home and return at midday since the woman would be in the theatre for some time.
He said he returned at lunchtime and his wife was out of the theatre but was in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), which created some confusion for him. The man said he could not understand what could have gone so wrong within that short space of time. Greene said that when he visited his wife in the Intensive Care Unit she was vomiting and streaks of blood were evident.
He said that after spending some time at the ICU, he left. Around 20:00hrs on Wednesday, Greene said he received a telephone call from the hospital saying that Nieuenkirk had died.
The GPHC and other public hospitals have been plagued with an alarming upsurge in maternal deaths in recent months.
A preliminary report into five recent deaths revealed that high-risk patients were left in the hands of junior doctors, who were unable to handle emergency maternal cases.
The report further stated that some of the patients were left unattended.