A Land of Canaan mother of three is the country’s latest maternal death, after giving birth last Tuesday evening in the Maternity Ward of the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPHC).
Dead is 32- year old Rhonda Cornelius of Gafoor’s Compound, Land of Canaan, East Bank Demerara.
The widower, Rodwell Cornelius, said that his wife had had a healthy pregnancy and had managed to carry the baby to full term without any significant complications. However, this all changed two Mondays ago when she was advised to go to the GPHC as her due date was approaching.
During her initial visit at the hospital, the man said his wife was admitted to the hospital for a one-week period due to high blood pressure. At the end of the one week, Cornelius was discharged and advised to return to the hospital if she did not go into labour by the following Monday. The period passed without her going into labour, and as advised, his wife returned to the hospital on the Monday where she was once again admitted.
Though he could not specifically say at what point in time the doctor decided to induce labour, he recalls being told by his wife that a tablet suspected to be Cytotec, was inserted into her for the purpose of inducing delivery.
While Cytotec is clinically prescribed for the prevention of gastric ulcers associated with the use of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, the use of the drug has been associated with maternal deaths across the world as it is has been noted to have serious adverse effects. Some of these effects include maternal or foetal death; rupture or perforation requiring uterine surgical repair; severe vaginal bleeding; retained placenta and pelvic pain. Despite this, however, the drug continues to be available to pregnant women and women of child-bearing age.
The grieving widower said he last spoke to his wife at around 9 pm on Tuesday just after she had given birth to their son.
“She called me while I was washing just after baby born, and she told me she was feeling weak but I didn’t take it on because I thought it was because she had just done deliver, but that was the last time I hear from her,” the man related.
He went on to explain that he received a call just around midnight from a nurse at the hospital who asked that he go to the hospital immediately as there was an emergency with his wife
When he got there, the man said doctors told him his wife had suffered a ruptured uterus, which he said was linked to the weight of the baby she had delivered.
This, resulted in her suffering massive internal bleeding and the only way of saving her life was to remove the uterus, to which Cornelius said he consented to.
However, the widower says their attempts to do so were unsuccessful as his wife subsequently died.
“I think these doctors could have saved my wife’s life; I don’t think they should have allowed her to push out that baby; that baby weighed 10 pounds and they should have done some ultrasound to know that so that she would have had to push it out,” the man related.
Meanwhile, Cornelius told Stabroek News that the preliminary finding of a post-mortem examination which was conducted yesterday reveal that she died from internal bleeding. However, he was also told that that additional samples would be taken and sent to be tested before an official cause of death is given; this he said is expected to take two weeks.
“My wife was a hard worker who still found time to maintain our two children, but now she’s gone and I’m left to take care of the three children by myself,” Cornelius added.
