A baby died during birth at the Linden Hospital Complex (LHC) on Wednesday, prompting calls for a full investigation and the assurance of a full recovery for the mother who lost her baby girl.
Sherronica Cummings, 27, was eagerly awaiting the birth of her third child on Wednesday. However, her dreams were shattered when she lost the child during birth, after carrying her for a full nine-month term. Cummings, who is the mother of an eight-year-old boy and a seven-year-old girl, had felt the baby moving during her pregnancy.
Cummings’ husband, mother and close relatives and friends began to feel uncomfortable last Monday, when she started to complain about excruciating abdominal pains. She was taken to the LHC the same day but was transferred to the Upper Demerara Hospital (Wismar Hospital) after being told that the maternity ward at Mackenzie was filled. “They took her there and had her for a full week all this time in pains and no one thought of checking her properly to see if she coulda make de baby naturally,” said her mother Barbara Fraser. She said that Cummings was told by the doctor and the nurses that if the pains worsened she should return to the institution.
Pastor Evelyn McDonald, a very close friend and confidant of Cummings, was asked to look over Cummings after she was discharged last Monday, since her husband had to return to Mabura to work. McDonald, like Fraser, said that she was very worried about the height of the fundus. “I looked at her tummy and I told her that this look very much like twins or very big child and I asked her if the nurses or the doctor told her whether or not she could make this child and she said they didn’t tell her anything,” McDonald explained.
According to McDonald, in the early morning hours of Wednesday she received a call from Cummings, indicating that her water bag had ruptured and she rushed her to the LHC, where she was immediately taken to the delivery room. “I sat outside waiting to hear if anything would have happened but the only thing I heard was a little moaning and the nurse came out and told me everything was okay and I should go home,” she recounted.
Meanwhile, at approximately 10 am, Fraser said that she received a call indicating that the baby died. The woman said that she immediately went to the hospital, where she discovered her daughter strapped to her bed with an infusion attached to her hand. “When they called they said that after the baby born, they weren’t getting any heartbeat and she wasn’t breathing,” she said.
McDonald, on the other hand, said that she was uneasy at home as she was awaiting word from the hospital. “When I came back they (nurses) said that they were calling my number and were not getting through, which I found strange.” She said at the time of her visit she didn’t see the child with the mother and decided to question the nurses. “They told me to ask her (Cummings) and she told me the baby dead and I should go in the room and check it,” McDonald said.
After further investigations, she was informed that the child weighed 11 ¾ lbs and Cummings had suffered severe pelvic damages. The same information was related to the woman’s husband and mother. “It was one fat big baby. I don’t know how they could have allowed her to go through naturally with such a big child. They had sufficient time to take her through a caesarean birth. She was 40 weeks when they had her in the hospital for one week, 40 weeks!” exclaimed McDonald.
Cummings’ family members said that they were further perturbed after the doctor was threatening to discharge the woman as she was crying out for pains despite several doses of pain medication on Thursday. “It was her father-in-law who had to go to Mr. Gumbs to stop the discharge,” McDonald said. “Now they are saying that she has to spend three months in hospital without moving. What is going to happen there now, she has good size and she has to remain bed ridden for all this time?”
Effort to contact the Chief Executive Officer of LHC Gordon Gumbs and the Administrator Trevor Vangendren proved futile since they were out of the district and on vacation, respectively.
Cummings’ family is appealing to the authorities to conduct a thorough investigation into the death of the child and a full assessment of the injuries the mother suffered.
