While he decried conditions at the New Amsterdam Hospital, Health Minister Dr Bheri Ramsaran yesterday rejected claims by her family that a woman undergoing surgery on January 19th died as a result of a power failure.
The blackout led to a frantic search for someone to turn on the standby power while Tirtawattie Shoandeo was being operated on. No one could be found and GPL did not restore power for an hour. During the outage, the woman’s surgeon left the operating theatre on two occasions, once to go to his car for a mini light and then shortly after he went in search of a flashlight. It is unclear if he found one.
Her only surviving child Yuvraj Shoandeo however remains adamant that there is a “cover up” by the hospital and ministry officials and he intends to pursue legal action.
“Long after surgery she died, the doctors ensured that all measures were taken…Hours after the surgery she died not a few minutes after so that was not the cause of her death. The doctors know there are ways of keeping a person alive and they did that…. Blackouts happen every day and this is not the first time while someone was in surgery there was a blackout…. She had a very serious condition and this was reflected in her post mortem”, Ramsaran told Stabroek News.
Relatives of 47-year-old Shoandeo of Lot 129 Whim Village, Corentyne, Berbice say that as the woman was undergoing surgery, on January 19th last, there was a power outage causing them to scamper for the person in charge of the generator to put it on. That person was never found and surgeons and the woman had to wait one hour before power was restored.
Shoandeo was officially pronounced dead around 2 am on the 20th of January and her family believes that the power outage in some way contributed to her death as lighting was not sufficient nor were needed medical devices operational.
Ramsaran said that an investigation was launched immediately after her death and her medical and post-mortem records summoned. The post-mortem report, he said, showed that she died of kidney failure and that she had gallstones. Ramsarran said that the woman also had an underlying illness.
According to the woman’s son, Yuvraj Shoandeo, his mother was rushed into emergency surgery sometime around 10 pm on January 19th. He said that prior to his mother’s visit to the New Amsterdam Hospital he had taken her to a private doctor in Corriverton where an ultrasound was done, which showed no abnormalities. Despite this, his mother continued to cry out for pain in the left side of her abdomen. As a result, he then took her to another private doctor on the Corentyne who told them that “something was growing in her belly”. This doctor referred them to the New Amsterdam Hospital telling them that surgery would have to be performed.
At the New Amsterdam Hospital, they were told that an emergency surgery had to be performed on her since she had a growth in her abdomen. She underwent surgery on the night of January 19th and it was during this procedure that the power outage occurred.
According to the family, they tried for over an hour to find a porter to turn on the back-up generator. He was never found and doctors had to find alternative lighting from cell phones and torchlights until the power was restored. The family was briefed around 11:30 pm that the woman’s heart had failed and she had to be shocked to be resuscitated. They were further informed after 1 am that the woman was in a critical condition and had to be taken to the Georgetown Public Hospital via ambulance. The hospital’s woes continued when the ambulance had to be push started. By the time it was finally ready the doctor returned with the sad news that Shoandeo had passed away.
“… this is just a cover to say they try everything…but I going far with this I waiting to see a lawyer” Yuvraj Shoandeo said.
Cobwebs
The minister told this newspaper that immediately after the woman’s death a probe was launched into the incident even as he himself pointed out that he was “shocked and sickened” at the physical conditions at the hospital.
He said while he did not believe that the power outage caused the woman’s death he wants to know why there isn’t an automatic power generator system at the medical institution and why persons had to manually turn on and off the generator. “This is a fairly modern facility…the facilities manager who is supposed to ensure that there is an efficient back-up system has to say why”, he said.
Ramsarran pointed out that it was only shortly before this incident that on a walk around of the health facility he was appalled at some of the maintenance works. He told Stabroek News that while the hospital is equipped with battery-powered back-up lighting in critical parts such as the maternity and operating theatre sections they were not working.
He added that when he looked up at the ceiling there was cobweb everywhere and he was disgusted that such laxity could pass senior officials for such a long time as he was informed that it was not a recent problem.
“The standby, rechargeable lights are all over the wall (and) had not been working for some time….there was cobweb in the roof….you mean they couldn’t buy some batteries? …they couldn’t get a broom and clean the roof … these are things that disgust me”, he said.
Ramsaran added that he was the one who had to dispatch an electrician from the city to Berbice to put batteries in the back-up lights.
Noted too was the fact that scheduled meetings of health personnel in Regions 5 and 6 were not being undertaken as they should be and this too needs to be addressed, the Minister said.
As a result, Ramsaran said that reports have to be submitted to him independently by all officials responsible as having one report going to one person sometimes skews how news is delivered. He said that there will be a management shake-up since he is tired of small fixable issues interrupting the daily running of his ministry. “There will be a regime shift…it is the two words that will be part of the Ministry’s lexicon”, he said.
