Marcia Fiedtkou, a 26-year-old first-time mother was the second patient to lose her new-born baby in about two weeks following delivery at the Linden Hospital Complex (LHC).
Her relatives are blaming the doctor who they say delayed performing a caesarean section. Speaking with Stabroek News, Richard Winter the father of Fiedtkou said that in this instance the nurses at the hospital are to be commended. His comments were representing residents of a section of Linden who felt that a united voice was necessary to avoid a recurrence of the daughter’s experience.
“The nurses must be complimented because had the doctor listen to them today Marcia would be holding her baby in her arms.” said Winter. He explained that his daughter was admitted to the LHC with abdominal pains on Tuesday 26th October 2010, the very day she was giving as her due date. The woman was examined and told that she wasn’t fully dilated. “They said the following day she would have been ready to give birth to the baby. The following shift said it was reduced, so it started getting confusing but she was crying out for severe pains.”
At that point nurses on duty felt that the doctor needed to be called in to do a caesarean section because they were seeing her from shift to shift in endless pain. The man said that on Friday the doctor was called out once again in the hope that he would perform the operation. “Based on what my daughter said he arrived there and didn’t do any operation”. The doctor is from China and there have been issues about understanding them.
Winter said that he was forced to call the Chinese embassy on Friday afternoon since communicating with the doctor posed a challenge due to the language barrier. Through an interpreter, Winter was told that the doctor related to the embassy official that the mother was showing signs of normalcy and he didn’t find it necessary to perform the surgery at that time. However he returned on Saturday night indicating that he was gathering the theatre team to perform the surgery. “Though the dilating didn’t increase then he found it fit this time to operate on her.”
Eagerly awaiting the arrival of the new-born family members and friends waited until the early morning hours of Sunday when the bundle of joy was rolled out of the theatre followed by his mother approximately an hour later. They however became suspicious when the pediatrician was summoned to the maternity ward. “Then I start suspecting that something ain’t right though nurses were saying that everything was alright. Then the two doctors came out of the theatre and they also went to the maternity ward” said Winter.
Upon investigation relatives were told that everything was ok with Fiedtkou but there was a problem with the new-born. “He (the paediatrician) said he drank some fluid which passed the stomach and went to the lungs so he suffering from a breathing problem and the colour of the baby he didn’t like.” Winter. This led to the child being transferred to the Georgetown Public Hospital where he subsequently died.
“People do cry out about nurses but in this situation there were nurses who recognized that he shoulda really intervene earlier but the can’t get him to do so because they are complaining about his stubborn behaviour”, said Winter, adding that the nurses were very fearful of the doctor and on many occasions didn’t want to be seen complaining. “They were very concern and they are really angry really angry.”
Echoed by several relatives and community members it was opined that the Ministry of Health should look at having a senior, English-speaking doctor to supervise the gynaecologist at the LHC since this is the second new-born death under his watch. Fiedtkou’s baby died of meconium aspiration syndrome/respiratory failure and was buried on Thursday.
Sherronica Cummings the other mother who lost her baby girl at the LHC was given the cause of death as asphyxia. When Stabroek News visited her at the LHC the woman was still in extreme pain in an isolation female ward. She said that a week had passed and she had not seen a specialist. “I am in a lot of pain I can’t move because I am strapped down from the hip down and I am very uncomfortable.” said the woman.
