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GPHC delivers over 7000 babies in 2017 -says workload does not allow for patients to get immediate attention
From left: Brigadier George Lewis, GPHC CEO and OBGYN Head, Dr. Lucio Pedro
People should not seek to access the health care services offered at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation [GPHC] with the belief that they will be immediately attended to. Such a belief, according to Chief Executive Officer [CEO], Brigadier George Lewis, is in fact a myth and therefore must be corrected.
He qualified his assertion by making clear that “at this hospital we see a number of patients every single day….last year alone we delivered over 7,000 babies at the Obstetrics and Gynaecology Clinic; we would have seen almost 18,000 pregnant women too.”
“It is therefore impractical to believe that you can walk into the Georgetown Public Hospital and not wait to receive service. I think it is unfair for anyone to believe so and I would like to correct that perception that exists,” said Brigadier Lewis.
His remarks were forthcoming even as he addressed reports of the alleged mistreatment of a woman [Jennifer Jagdeo of Herstelling, East Bank Demerara] who recently visited the GPHC to deliver her baby. The woman’s baby, because of complications, which were detailed by hospital officials, died. However, the woman claimed that she suffered even more because of the awful treatment meted out to her by nurses at the institution.
But according to the CEO, “the GPHC has many dedicated nurses who do a tremendous job in terms of providing health care to the public and saving lives.” He however noted that the issue regarding the treatment of the patients by nurses will be investigated.
“We will investigate her complaint to ensure it doesn’t happen again…so that we can correct the alleged behaviour or misbehaviour of our nurses,” said the CEO.
Speaking of how the woman came to be attended to at the GPHC, Head of the Obstetrics and Gynaecology Department, Dr. Lucio Pedro, said that the 36-year-old, who was pregnant with her first child, had made her way from a private doctor. The woman had informed medical officials, Dr. Pedro said, that she opted to visit the GPHC after her doctor refused to attend to her because he was “too busy” and advised that she seek care at the GPHC.
According to Dr. Pedro, the woman arrived at the Maternity Unit of the GPHC at 12:37hrs and was admitted at 13:14hrs and was found to have “a ruptured membrane.” Also the woman was able to share that her water bag had burst three months earlier. She was taken into the delivery room, and there, doctors examined her and found that she was only 30 weeks along. But not only was her baby premature, it was also found that the baby was breeched. As a result of the vast complications the woman had, Dr. Pedro said that efforts were hurriedly made to prepare her for a Caesarean section.
“When she was examined she was found to be fully dilated, meaning that the baby was about to come out,” said Dr. Pedro who noted that before 16:00 hours the baby [a girl] was born breeched in the presence of a senior paediatrician. The baby was handed over to the senior paediatrician and, according to Dr. Pedro, based on observation “the baby was blue and also the paediatrician noted that the limbs could not be extended. That happens really when you don’t have water around the baby.”
Although the baby was incubated, it could not get oxygen because the lungs did not mature. “The fluid around the baby helps to mature the lungs, but because there was no fluid the lungs were not mature and did not expand, so no oxygen could go in and because of that the condition did not improve,” related Dr. Pedro.
Recognising that not much else could be done for the baby, Dr. Pedro then recounted the newborn was taken to its parents and died half of an hour later.
But according to Dr. Pedro, a referral from the woman’s doctor could have gone a long way, since it could have aided doctors to provide more timely care to the woman and her baby. He too insisted that based on his information, there is no truth to the reports that the woman was mistreated during stay at the public hospital.
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