Sad Christmas for Suddie husband whose wife died while delivering newborn

Dec 31, 2018 News

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 “This Christmas has been a very, very sad one. I had to pretend like I am happy. It is hard pretending but I have to do it for my children and family…” – Dennis Stoll

With a wife buried just a few weeks ago and three children, including a newborn daughter to raise, it has been a sad Christmas for Dennis Stoll.
Stoll’s reputed wife, Kendeka Abrams, 24, of Bethany, on the Essequibo Coast, died on December 1 at the Suddie Hospital, from severe haemorrhaging while delivering a full-term baby girl.
An emotional Stoll, in an interview with this publication, said that he is finding it very difficult to take care of his three young children.
“This is very hard for me because I lost someone I love, and I am finding it very difficult to take care of three young children on my own, especially when the baby is crying. Thank God my parents are by my side to help me with the children!”

Stoll said that, for the past few weeks, he and his children have been staying at his parents’ home.
“This Christmas has been a very, very sad one. I had to pretend like I am happy. It is hard pretending but I have to do it for my children and family.”
The grieving man said that he and his wife had planned to have a merry, merry Christmas but all that was shattered when he lost her.
“Every year, we would normally cook and share food and nice stories with our neighbours, because we are all poor and we all make the best of what we have.”
The teary-eyed man said that he is not the person he used to be, because his wife is no longer around: “I don’t have a life in me anymore. I don’t have the urge to live. I am just living for my children but most of the time, I am pretending to be happy.”
When asked what his plans for the new year are, Stoll said that he plans to return home with his children, so that his eldest child can go to school. The labourer added that since the incident, he was unable to work since he finds himself spending most of his time with his kids.
“The incident has left me broken because my wife used to take care of the children while I went and work. Right now I am praying to God for an opportunity so I can find a job close to home so that I can be close to my children, because they are the ones keeping me alive.”

Stoll, while reminiscing on the last time he spent with his wife at the hospital, said that he would like the persons in the health care sector to show more care and cherish people’s lives.
“Health care providers need to do better and they can do better.”
According to reports, health officials launched an investigation against nursing staff at the Bethany Missionary, who referred Abrams to the Suddie Hospital, and failed to indicate on the woman’s chart that she was a high-risk patient. Abrams, a mother of two, had bled heavily during her previous deliveries.
Other complaints are that Abrams had told the lone nursing staff who was present during her delivery at the Suddie Hospital, of her history of postpartum haemorrhage; that the hospital had inadequate supplies of blood, and that the allegedly ill-prepared Suddie staff should have referred Abrams to the Georgetown Public Hospital.
This publication understands that Abrams was taken to the Suddie Hospital at around 09:00 hrs on November 29. That was some nine miles by boat and taxi from her home.
According to reports, only a midwife attended to her, who she informed of her history of heavy bleeding.
Stoll recalled later waiting outside the delivery room at around 17:50 hrs and hearing his wife’s screams, then shortly after, the cries of her newborn.
“I asked (the nurse) if anything wrong and she said ‘no, just a little bleeding,’” Stoll said.
On being reassured that his spouse was in no danger, Stoll, who was at the hospital with his mother, suggested that they go home and return the next day.
“I asked, ‘let us go home, nurse?’. She seh alright.”
This, they did, but he said that at around 20:00 hrs, he received a call from someone who said that his wife was now in the operating theatre.
What had reportedly occurred was that, as with the previous pregnancies, Abrams was again experiencing postpartum haemorrhaging. She was reportedly given three units of blood, but the hospital allegedly lacked an adequate supply of blood.
After her condition worsened, she was rushed to the operating theatre, where she reportedly underwent a postpartum hysterectomy (surgery to remove the uterus following heavy bleeding).
Stoll returned to the hospital, but did not get to see his wife. He said that, around midnight on December 1, a senior medical official “told me that my wife gone from bad to worse and I should pray.”
“At around five o’clock, I was going to the ward where they had her first, and before I could reach, a doctor looked at me and said that my wife passed away at around ten past four.”
Meanwhile, the baby girl is healthy and has been released from hospital. The couple has a six-year-old daughter and a son, who is almost three.

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