Days before Christmas, Sherronica Cummings lay in her bed her mobility limited; a hive of activity surrounded her as her family members got the house ready for the holiday.
Her children were busy around the house and yard putting things together to adorn their home. A male family member was on a ladder outside painting the walls of the house.
“Girl deh does got meh mouth going but you know what, I am happy to be home with my children especially for Christmas and I am not worrying but just being thankful to God for life and being with my family,” Cummings said. She had sustained massive pelvic damage following a delivery at the Linden Hospital Complex in October. The baby died and since then she has been bedridden.
Cummings was discharged from hospital just a few weeks ago and has been undergoing physiotherapy at home with scheduled visits to her doctor.
“I could walk a little now. I coming around,” she said.
She said she has been experiencing spells of dizziness and tingling about the body which doctors said were brought about because she is stressed. “But I ain’t worried about a thing I am home and I ain’t worrying. Baby gone and there is nothing I could do to bring him back so why worry,” she said.
Cummings said she is praying for the day when she could be back on her feet and leading a normal life. For now she is grateful for the support given by her children, relatives and close friends, neighbours and especially her pastor who has been a tower of support.
The 27-year-old mother of two children, an eight-year-old boy and a seven-year-old girl, was eagerly awaiting her third child, when disastrously, the baby died at birth.
The week prior to her delivery, Cummings had begun to cry out for excruciating abdominal pains. She was taken to the Linden Hospital Complex the same day but was transferred to the Upper Demerara Hospital (Wismar Hospital) after being told that the maternity ward at LHC was filled. After a week, she was discharged.
Pastor Evelyn McDonald, a very close friend and confidant of Cummings, had said that following her discharge the woman’s husband returned to his place of work in Mabura and asked that she look over his wife in his absence.
McDonald said 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 a twin 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 had said.
According to McDonald it was in the early morning hours two days after her discharge that she received a call from Cummings indicating that her water bag had ruptured. McDonald rushed her to the LHC where she was immediately taken to the delivery room.
At approximately 10 am Cummings’s mother Barbara Fraser received a call indicating that the baby had died. The woman said she immediately went to the hospital and on investigating learned that the child had weighed 11¾ lbs and Cummings had suffered severe pelvic damage. Two weeks elapsed before she was afforded the opportunity of being seen by the orthopaedic surgeon.
Chief Executive Officer of the LHC Gordon Gumbs said in a recent interview that the case is still under investigation.
In the meantime Cummings might just manage to take her place at the holiday table with her family, giving praise and thanks for life and being loved and cared for.
Inga
On the other hand Kerwin Greene will be without his baby and reputed wife since he buried them both on Wednesday. Inga Nieuenkirk died at the GPH following an operation to remove her baby which had died in utero. The woman was rushed to the LHC under a week ago where it was discovered that there was no foetal heart beat. She was then transferred to the GPH but succumbed following the surgery to remove the baby. The woman had bled profusely en-route to the GPH rendering her very weak during the surgery.
Greene said 2010 was a bad year for him since he narrowly escaped death after being wrongfully shot in the chest by an off-duty police officer at One Mile Wismar. He was a patient at the Intensive Care Unit of the GPH for more than a week. The officer was remanded to prison. Less than three months later he lost his wife and baby.
