Lindener Sherronica Cummings, who had sustained severe pelvic damage while delivering what turned out to be a stillborn baby at the Linden Hospital Complex (LHC) in October last year, has been readmitted to the hospital with complications relating to that injury.
According to close relatives and friends the woman was readmitted to the LHC’s female ward on January 20, still unable to walk, with excruciating chest pains. On that day, her father-in-law Mervyn Whyte said he received a telephone call from a taxi driver urging him to go and secure Cummings’s home because she was on her way to the hospital.
Whyte said though he found the call strange, he complied, then he headed to the hospital. He said Cummings told him she couldn’t bear the pain anymore so she called a taxi and headed to the hospital.
Other relatives have said that since her discharge, the woman had been experiencing dizziness and fainting spells.
Cummings said she had told doctors and nurses about these symptoms in December and they had told her she was experiencing depression over the death of her child and her injuries.
She said although these conditions prevailed, doctors and nurses held firm to the first diagnosis but her condition worsened and she began to experience severe chest pains. At this juncture, she said she insisted on a heart test.
“I told them and they were still telling me the same thing. I had to insist that I needed a heart test and they discovered that there is a blockage in one of valves to my heart,” she said. Since the discovery, Cummings said she has been receiving treatment though her body is responding slowly to it.
Cummings also complained bitterly that she is not getting the best care; and that the nurses make derogatory remarks about her. “I does be right here lying and hearing them talking all sorts of bad things about me. I just want to go home man. I just want to come out of here and go home,” she said.
One of the woman’s close friends, who has been by her side throughout the ordeal said she is also bleeding. “The nurses saying it was old people thing to sit over hot water after delivery so she never did it and now it’s causing complications because she is passing a lot of clots,” the friend added.
A relative told this newspaper that because of financial constraints they are unable to take Cummings to a private hospital. The relative said the family is distressed over the hardships the woman is enduring and they are particularly upset over reports that the nurses are ill-treating her. “It is really sad to know the people who should be showing love and care for her are telling her things like she got psychological problems and all sorts of ugly things. Even her pressure going up and down and they causing her to stress more,” the relative said.
A source close to the LHC said that the results from the investigations into the death of Cummings’s baby and on her condition have not been returned to the hospital. Efforts to confirm this with the LHC administration proved futile.
However, relatives say they are frustrated by the situation and are calling on the minister of health to investigate. “Even her children are taking it on. We don’t want to say certain things but we are praying that she recovers and that we can get help urgently for her,” another relative said, adding that the family believes that it was negligence by the hospital that has resulted in Cummings’s prolonged suffering.
In October 2010, Cummings was eagerly looking forward to holding her newborn baby in her arms when tragedy struck at the LHC resulting in a stillborn baby and Cummings suffering severe pelvic damage.
Cummings had told Stabroek News shortly after that she had spent several weeks at the LHC before she was discharged. “I am glad to be home with my children and family especially for the Christmas,” she had said during the festive season. She had started physiotherapy and was confident that she was going to get better and resume a normal life.
