An investigation has been launched into the death of a Matthews Ridge woman who succumbed one week after giving birth via caesarean section (C-section) at the Georgetown Public Hospital, Minister of Public Health Dr George Norton has said.
Speaking with Stabroek News yesterday, the minister said that an investigation is currently ongoing into the death of the 27-year-old woman, Relisa Sam, whose address was given as Lot 229 South Road and Cummings Street, Bourda.
The minister added that he has received the young woman’s chart and is expecting a report on the circumstances of her death shortly.
Efforts to contact family members of the young woman yesterday proved futile.
The minister said Sam did her second C-section at the Public Hospital on July 8 and then had an intervention (where the doctors had to operate on her again as her cut was not healing) done the following week on July 15.
“They found that the reason for that… The infection was due to an alteration of the appendix,” he said. The appendicitis, he said, may be “independent of the CS.”
Norton told this newspaper that by the time the intervention was done, the infection had spread to her other organs and described her condition as “general septicemia.”
Asked about the status of the child, the minister confirmed that the baby, a girl, was in good health and was still at the hospital.
He also confirmed that the young woman was hospitalized right up until she died on Sunday evening.
