Health officials should give explanation before surgery – Mother urges

Apr 28, 2017 News

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More than one month after an investigation was launched into the questionable surgical procedure conducted on her daughter, Ms. Kelcie Browne is still awaiting answers.
The woman last month shared how her daughter, who was 15 years old at the time, was operated on at the Region Seven Bartica Hospital by a doctor who failed to explain to her, the need for the surgery, ahead of conducting the surgery.
Browne had expressed her conviction that the doctor was not absolutely certain of the need for the surgery before proceeding.
Following the surgery, Browne said she filed a complaint with the Regional Health Officer, Dr. Edward Sagala, who had given assurance that the matter would be investigated.
“I told him all of my concerns and he promised that he wouldn’t leave the matter down and he would get to the bottom of it,” Browne related. However, according to the woman, she was subsequently contacted by Dr. Sagala’s secretary who informed her that she would be required to give a statement and that the matter would have to be investigated at the level of the Ministry of Public Health.
But more than a month later, Browne said that she still hadn’t received any word from the Ministry or the Bartica Hospital’s RHO on the status of the investigation.
According to Browne, although she was worried about her daughter’s recovery, she is grateful that she is now progressing well and was able to recently celebrate her 16th birthday.
However, Browne said that what she is particularly concerned about at this juncture is what appears to be the lack of a standard enforced policy to ensure that even before a surgery is conducted, a next of kin should be allowed to give consent only after they are well informed of the situation.
“This didn’t happen…my daughter was in no position to give consent and I was nowhere around when the doctor decided that my daughter needed a surgery…I was asked to give consent, but had no idea for what,” the woman related.
“The Ministry has to do something about this…not just for me, but for other people too. These people need to say what surgery is needed and why it is necessary…and if possible even give people’s family the chance to seek a second opinion before surgery,” Browne related.
According to Browne, it wasn’t until her daughter’s operation that she was informed that the doctor had operated on her daughter for an inflamed appendix.
Browne, in recounting how her daughter, Phebehola Stanford, became a patient of the hospital, said that she’d brought her daughter to the Bartica Hospital on March 5 last. This was due to the fact that she was experiencing a severe case of diarrhoea and vomiting.
Browne said that she was hopeful that her daughter would have been given a gravol injection to stop the vomiting.
According to Browne, at the hospital her daughter was first attended to by a female doctor who administered the requested injection, but also decided to admit her daughter for observation overnight. Browne disclosed that the doctor revealed that she made the decision to admit Stanford, since they resided some distance away – at One and Half Miles Bartica, Potaro Road.
The woman said that she left her daughter in the care of the hospital and returned the next day to visit. It was then that she was informed by a nurse that her daughter would have to undergo surgery.
The nurse, according to Browne, was unable to explain the reason for the surgery.
”I asked the nurse why my daughter needed surgery, but all she said was that she didn’t know, but it could help to save my daughter’s life,” Browne recounted.
The woman said that she learnt that the decision for the surgery was made by a Cuban male doctor who assumed duty on the ward the day after her daughter was admitted.
“I tried to find out why she needed the surgery…but because I was so worried and I didn’t want anything to happen, I decided to sign, giving consent for the surgery,” Browne revealed.
It wasn’t until after the surgery, Browne said, that she was able to have a brief conversation with the doctor, who said that the surgery was warranted because an ultrasound revealed that her daughter had an inflamed appendix.
“He said that he could see what looked like pus in her belly and surgery was the only option…he left me thinking too that by giving consent, I helped to save my daughter’s life.” But the woman said that she became enraged when she examined the wound left by the surgical procedure.
“It was this ugly, horrible cut left on my daughter with these horrible looking stitches from my daughter’s vagina area to her navel. This is my young daughter with these cuts! I know women who got cut for their babies and didn’t get a horrible cut like what he left on my daughter,” the woman lamented.
She said it was upon seeing that, she started to question whether the doctor had in fact removed her daughter’s appendix. “Nobody showed me anything and nobody was explaining anything to me either.”
According to the woman, days after the surgery her daughter continued to experience the same discomfort in addition to pains to her side and spine.

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