A post-mortem examination conducted yesterday on the body of Vanessa Amsterdam, the country’s latest maternal death revealed that she died as a result of lung disease and brain edema.
Amsterdam, 26, of Berbice was rushed to the New Amsterdam Hospital on September 23, after she started to experience labour pain and headaches.
She was transferred to the Georgetown Public Hospital that same night and admitted to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) where she died on October 2. It was her first pregnancy after seven years of marriage.
During her admittance at the hospital she had given birth to a stillborn girl via Caesarean section and doctors later operated her three times, during which they removed her entire womb. Amsterdam had reportedly consented to the first surgery, while her husband and relatives were only informed of the others after they were completed.
She was also given seven units of blood.
Speaking to this newspaper yesterday, Dwight Amsterdam, her widower, said that based on what he understood his wife had drowned due to the fact that she was being fed though tubes which he claimed weren’t fixed correctly and had caused the lung disease.
Minister of Public Health Dr George Norton had told this newspaper that while an investigation was launched into the case Vanessa Amsterdam suffered from high blood pressure throughout her seven months of pregnancy and was diagnosed with placental abruption —a condition in which the placenta is separated from the uterus, cutting off the supply of oxygen to the baby.
“It is a very important role of the pre-natal clinics of these patients to monitor them closely especially if they are suffering from high blood pressure,” Norton had said while adding that if the condition is identified in the early stage their chances of survival are better.
