Another young mother left with gauze in abdomen after C-Section

Mar 05, 2023 News

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– suffers from leaking intestine

By Rehanna Ramsay

Kaieteur News – Days after an Essequibo woman came forward recounting a harrowing story about having to endure severe pain due to a pack of gauze being left in her uterus for two months during a Caesarian ‘C’ section operation done at the Suddie Public Hospital in Region Two, another woman has come forward with an almost identical story—the only thing is hers is worse.

Sarah Campbell, a 24-year-old woman from Devonshire Castle, Essequibo Coast said that gauze was left in her for six months after an emergency C-Section done. The woman told Kaieteur News that the gauze was removed, leaving her with a hole in her intestines, that leaks faeces.

Campbell said she was admitted to the maternity ward at the Suddie Public Hospital on June 24, 2022, due to high pressure. On June, 25, 2022, she said that she was supposed to go into labour but was experiencing difficulty.

She told Kaieteur News that the medical staff tried to induce labour but after a failed attempt, they recommended a C-Section.

Not thinking too much of it, the young mother said she signed the consent form for the operation. She explained, “a doctor told me they don’t want to risk baby life anymore so I would have to do an emergency C-Section which I consented to because I want my baby to be ok”.

However after the operation, the mother continued to experience severe pain and discomfort in her lower abdomen. She said that as a first time mom, “I believed that it was because of the C-Section”. But the pain worsened and her stomach started to swell. This prompted the young mother to visit the Windsor Castle Health Centre to seek answers.

“I  tell the doctor what’s happening to me and she examine the abdomen and she say it’s not normal and it shouldn’t be swollen and she tell me to do an ultrasound…I went at the Suddie Public Hospital where I did an ultrasound and the doctor say it’s a mass there…Still they weren’t sure what it was. They give me pain tablets and I was sent home…,” Campbell said.

As the pain intensified, Campbell said that she returned to the hospital where more ultrasound tests were done.

“They keep saying it’s a mass. Due to severe pain, I was admitted and the doctors did a number of tests.…I was given pain medication and still the pain continued. I was told to do a CT scan privately which I did…They [read] the CT and they told me I have an abscess or a giant diverticulitis with acute inflammatory changes.” Campbell was placed on antibiotics but said she was in “so much pain,” that she had to be hospitalized.

She said after being in the hospital for about a month, she was discharged.

Campbell said “All this time I was in pain I could have hardly hold my baby and couldn’t even breastfeed him how I was in pain. The pain wasn’t getting any better I cried. In October 2022, I eventually went back to the hospital where I was once again admitted and was treated with antibiotics.”

She noted that the pain wasn’t going anywhere and became unbearable. She also developed constant fever and started to pass blood in her stool.

The woman recounted that she went back to the hospital on the November 12, 2022 and a doctor from Suddie Hospital contacted the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC).

“I was being referred to the GPHC where I was taken with the ambulance and accompanied by my mother and a nurse… After arriving and waiting for several painful hours at the emergency area of GPHC my name was called…I went in to see the doctors. After 2 days of investigation by doctors I was told, I will have to do a surgery.”

However, Campbell said it was on November 16, 2022 she did the first surgery.

She said, “I wasn’t expecting to hear what was found inside of me. It was gauze! And because of how long it was inside of me it started to rot my intestine and caused it to have a hole which the doctors at GPHC had to cut and fix.”

However, the surgery was not successful and Campbell has endured five other corrective procedures since. The woman remains in and out of the hospital because of her intestine not fully healed.

“Up to this day it’s still not fully healed. Because of this I’m suffering physically, mentally and emotionally. I can’t even be with my child,” Campbell said adding that she continues to suffer in silence.

The woman is desperate for help because she said, “I have a cut in my abdomen and my intestines continue to leak feces, so I need to go for dressing every day and the hurtful part is that I can’t care for my child and no one from Suddie Public Hospital didn’t try to reach out to me.”

Campbell’s story comes on close heels of Sussana Philmattie, another young mother from Essequibo Coast recounted her story

She told this publication that she was left in pain for two months after giving birth via a Caesarean ‘C’ Section, at the Suddie Regional Hospital in Essequibo. The woman later discovered that the pain and swelling in her stomach area that remained after the procedure was due to a large pack of gauze that was left in her uterus by the operating team at the Suddie Hospital.

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• C-section, gauze, intestines, leaking, Mother, Suddie Hospital

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