Another young mother has died at the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPHC). Twenty-one-year-old Akeisha Richardson, who delivered a baby on Friday, July 24, died at GPHC on Monday, July 27, 2015.
When contacted by Stabroek News for comment Richardson’s mother Ruth Brisport said that she was not yet ready to discuss her daughter’s death.
Repeated efforts to contact Chief Medical Officer Dr Shamdeo Persaud and Minister of Health Dr George Norton proved futile.
According to a release from GPHC, “following delivery, [Richardson] started experiencing seizures and was transferred to the Intensive Care Unit where she was being monitored. However, she subsequently died.”
Richardson is the most recent in a series of maternal and child deaths this year.
In January 19-year-old, Marina Persaud of Golden Grove died of a ruptured intestine after delivering on Christmas Day. In March Suemede Eastman-Critchlow’s 4-month-old son Kevon Eastman-Critchlow died after he received what she believes were incorrect vaccines at the Plaisance Health Centre. In April 22-year-old Kamili Arjune, died on Good Friday after a botched abortion. Also in April, Teresa Lalltoo, lost her second child after medical personnel at the West Demerara Regional Hospital (WDRH) chose to artificially rupture her amniotic sac. In May, 20-year-old Yonette Gray died after delivering her first child by caesarean section at the Suddie Hospital. In June Carol Bollers a 41-year-old mother of five died after what was believed to be a botched abortion.
These incidents join the other instances of maternal and child death which had seen Guyana ranked as one of the five Caribbean countries with the highest maternal deaths.
According to the report, ‘Trends in Maternal Mortality Estimates 1990 to 2013’, Guyana’s mortality rate is 250 deaths per every 100,000 births.
The is the annual number of female deaths per 100,000 live births from any cause related to or aggravated by pregnancy or its management (excluding accidental or incidental causes). It includes deaths during pregnancy, childbirth, or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy, irrespective of the duration and site of the pregnancy, for a specified year.
The Minister of Health Dr George Norton upon assumption of his post had promised to do “his utmost to lower Guyana’s rate of maternal deaths and to give timely answers to those families who have lost loved ones via this route or through infant mortality.”
However most of the families who have suffered loss due to maternal death have not been offered closure.
