A former nursing aide died on Tuesday after undergoing an emergency C-Section at the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH).
Dead is Sattie De Jesus, 35, of 477 Kuru Kururu, Soesdyke-Linden Highway, who underwent the procedure for the delivery of her third child.
De Jesus, who was not due to deliver until next month, took ill on Monday night and died on Tuesday. Her baby, a girl, remains hospitalised at the GPH.
Up to press time, GPH Public Relations Officer Mitzy Campbell told Stabroek News that there was no report on De Jesus’ case.
De Jesus’ husband, Odin De Jesus, recounted to Stabroek News that his wife started to experience stomach pains. “Well, I thought it was normal pregnancy pain, so she took it easy, she bathe and relaxed,” he said.
However, close to midnight on Monday, his wife called out to him, this time in distress. The husband said that her pains had gotten worse and her breathing was shallow.
“My wife never trouble with pressure and that Monday night when the pain got more than her, I begged a neighbour to rush her to the hospital,” the man recounted.
Odin said that he was unable to accompany his wife to the hospital since he had to stay and look after their five-year-old daughter, who was asleep.
The husband said that that it was not until around 6am on Tuesday morning that he got the news that his wife was in a critical condition and that he needed to make his way to the GPH. “A doctor called and said to come as I needed to sign a document to permit surgery because he said Sattie was in a bad condition. I told them to give me some time to get there because of the traffic,” he related.
Odin said that when he arrived at the hospital, sometime after 8am, he met with a doctor who explained what happened to his wife. “The doctor explained everything fine, fine to me… like the pain made her blood pressure go sky high and like they had to make a decision between my wife and the baby life,” he explained.
He noted that when his wife had last visited the Soesdyke Clinic for a scheduled check-up, she was told by the midwife that the baby was in a “crossway” position. “She told my wife to hope that that the child went back in line before delivery next month. So they sent her away,” he said.
He noted that on Tuesday, the doctor told him that the baby was still in the crosswise position and that they had to operate on her immediately.
His wife subsequently gave birth to the premature baby girl after the C-Section was done. Odin said that their daughter is still in the hospital in an incubator.
When asked if he had seen his wife after the birth of their child, he said yes. “She did not look nice at all… [She] looked brain dead. The doctors told me if she made it, it will be a miracle,” he noted.
Odin said he felt as though the doctors did not want to tell him that his wife was not going to make it. “The doctors at the hospital, when my wife died, they tried everything; she was on life support, she was hooked up to an oxygen machine and when she was going they tried to resuscitate her but my wife was gone,” the grief-stricken husband told this publication. Odin said that before his wife died, the doctors had wanted to do a CT scan to ascertain her condition but it was too late.
Care and support
According to Odin, Sattie, who had not experienced any complications during her two previous pregnancies, was not taking any pre-natal medication. He explained that the clinic did not have any at times. “Sometimes when you go, there [are] no doctors to look at you, when they come they do a quick thing then they send you home,” he explained. He said that the clinic never had the supplies they needed and if they wanted medication they had to buy it from a pharmacy.
Odin and Sattie had been married for almost 10 years.
The father of three said that though his wife is gone, he has received the full support from his mother and their family. “Losing Sattie is a great loss. Our five year old girl asks when mommy coming home and I try to explain to her that she is with Jesus now,” he said.
He also said that he has received support from the nurses at the hospital who knew his wife as she had worked there. Sattie was a Patient Care Assistant at the hospital for ten years but left the profession almost five years ago.
A post-mortem examination is scheduled to be done today to determine the woman’s cause of death.
