“If the nurses at Charity Hospital had sent my daughter-in-law right away to the Suddie Public Hospital, I believe that she would have still been alive.”
This was the sentiment of Nelly Gray, the mother-in-law of 20-year-old Yonette Gray of Somerset and Berks, Essequibo Coast, who died on May 15th, after giving birth to her first child, a baby girl at the Suddie Public Hospital, Essequibo Coast.
On Saturday, the Georgetown Public Hospital issued a statement on the death. The GPHC said the patient was referred to the GPHC on May 10. She had “arrived at the Accident and Emergency Unit (A&E) in an unconscious state intubated and ambu bagged,” the release stated.
These measures are used as part of resuscitation measures employed when patients are not breathing properly.
After arrival she was transferred to the intensive care unit and subsequently died on May 15.
Speaking with Stabroek News, Nelly Gray said that her daughter-in-law was 37 weeks 6 days pregnant when she was taken to the hospital on May 10th after experiencing pains.
“She take in about 2am the Sunday and I take her to Charity Hospital. When we reach at the hospital, she start to vomit and as soon as we take her in the nurse check her and she (nurse) said that she didn’t reach time to deliver. Then the nurse check her pressure and she said that it was high.
“Yonette never trouble from high pressure before so after she was still feeling hot pains I ask the nurse if she (Yonette) would be ok. The nurse said that she will keep Yonette in and at 5:30am the morning then she would transfer her to Suddie Hospital. They send me home and tell me that I must wait on the road at 5:30 when the ambulance passing to go with Yonette to Suddie.”
Gray related that she did as was advised by the nurse but it was not until after 6am that the ambulance collected her.
“Till after 6 the ambulance come and the nurse had tell me 5:30 it would pick me up. Anyhow, while going to Suddie in the ambulance, Yonette start to ketch fits and they didn’t had no oxygen in the ambulance to give her. She start fighting up but then she calm down and when I watch my daughter-in-law, I didn’t know what to say or do because I never see her like that. When we reach to Suddie, the doctors start to work on her immediately and they told me that they would have to cut her to save the baby and I agreed. The doctors rushed her to the operating room and then after they come out, one of the doctor tell me that she (Yonette) was strong. They took her in the Intensive Care Unit and not long after I hear they say something wrong.
“When I gone in, they had her on life support machine and nobody ain’t explained nothing to me. All they said was that they will transfer her to town on the 4 0 clock steamer but then a woman who works there said that she (Yonette) went bad and that they have to fly her over with plane to Georgetown Public Hospital. They end up saying that they will carry her with plane and about 3am … they took her.
“At Suddie, they said that the nurse at Charity didn’t give Yonette no medication and no paper was written by the nurse to hand over Yonette to Suddie Hospital. They just send her in the ambulance.”
The woman said that she travelled to Georgetown early Monday morning and when she got to the Georgetown Public Hospital, she was told that her daughter-in-law was already dead.
“On Monday when I went to Georgetown, the doctor say that he was sorry but Yonette didn’t make it. He tell me that she bleed through her eyes, ears, mouth and nose and her kidneys failed and that by the time she reached to the hospital, she was already dead. If we had known that she was dead already we would not have let them fly her to Georgetown because that was a lot of expense.
“I never saw Yonette alive after that Sunday morning. They keep her at Charity Hospital and didn’t give her no medication. Since it was her first baby, I say that I shouldn’t carry her to Suddie on my own because I was saying that she would of get baby in the car so that was the reason I take her to Charity Hospital because it is far closer from Suddie.”
Nelly Gray said that her son and the entire family are in deep mourning and that she is now taking care of her granddaughter.
“On Monday around 3 pm after I came back to Essequibo from Georgetown, I collect my granddaughter from the Suddie Hospital. The baby is doing well but it is so sad that she don’t have her mother”, Nelly Gray said.
A post-mortem is to be performed.
