Trinidad: Pregnant mom sent home twice by medics loses baby

(Trinidad Guardian) Tak­ing home her new­born ba­by should have been ex­pec­tant San Juan mom Crys­tal Car­ring­ton’s birth­day gift to her hus­band Curt God­dard and her­self.

But this was not to be, as Car­ring­ton’s ba­by girl, whom they had al­ready named Olivia, died in the womb. And the cou­ple now wants an­swers, since they be­lieve neg­li­gence on the part of doc­tors at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, who sent her home twice the same day af­ter she went to the hos­pi­tal com­plain­ing she was ready to de­liv­er, led to her un­born child’s death.

“To­day is my hus­band’s birth­day and Au­gust 10th was mine,” Car­ring­ton told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day.

The moth­er of three be­lieves her ba­by’s death could have been pre­vent­ed if she hadn’t been sent home by doc­tors twice with­in hours last Thurs­day, al­though both times she told them she was in pain, bleed­ing and be­lieved she was ready to de­liv­er.

“From the Thurs­day night it was just pain, pain, pain and plen­ty mu­cus was com­ing out,” Car­ring­ton said.

How­ev­er, she said doc­tors told her she wasn’t ready to de­liv­er and sent her home. She said she was told not to re­turn un­less her wa­ter bag burst or her bleed­ing be­came heav­ier.

Car­ring­ton said she was giv­en a let­ter to re­turn to the hos­pi­tal on Mon­day but af­ter ex­pe­ri­enc­ing a high fever on Sat­ur­day and no move­ment from her ba­by, she knew some­thing was wrong. Her fam­i­ly took her back to the hos­pi­tal on Sun­day morn­ing. At that point, medics burst her wa­ter bag, an ul­tra­sound was per­formed and she was told the ba­by had no heart­beat.

“I was in shock be­cause from the be­gin­ning of my preg­nan­cy every­thing was good,” Car­ring­ton said.

She said the doc­tors told her that the ba­by had died since Fri­day and she may have got­ten an in­fec­tion. But she be­lieves the doc­tors are now play­ing the blame game and wants them to take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, main­tain­ing this could have been avoid­ed.

“I would like them to take their wrong and stop plac­ing blame on me. They was sup­posed to keep me, this could have been avoid­ed, no doubt about that,” Car­ring­ton said.

The cou­ple al­so ex­pe­ri­enced a mis­car­riage ear­li­er this year and with the death of ba­by Olivia, fa­ther God­dard said he doesn’t want to put his girl­friend in such a sit­u­a­tion again. “When he found out he start­ed to cry one time, start­ed wip­ing his eyes,” Car­ring­ton said.

Car­ring­ton said be­sides the phys­i­cal pain which she still ex­pe­ri­ences, the emo­tion­al pain can at times be un­bear­able.

“It breaks my heart to throw away my ba­by’s milk,” she said.

But she’s not the on­ly one in her fam­i­ly who is hurt­ing, as she said dur­ing a fam­i­ly dis­cus­sion about the in­ci­dent on Tues­day her el­dest daugh­ter start­ed cry­ing and her youngest still thinks she’s go­ing to be a big sis­ter.

“My five-year-old still rubs my bel­ly and calls Olivia,” Car­ring­ton said.

Car­ring­ton said she was al­so dis­ap­point­ed at the way doc­tors treat­ed her af­ter her daugh­ter’s death.

“They left me in the labour ward for five hours af­ter I de­liv­ered my ba­by, so I had to lis­ten to sev­er­al ba­bies be­ing born even though mine was dead,” she claimed.

She said when she couldn’t take the emo­tion­al pain any­more she called the doc­tor and asked to be moved from the ward. She said she al­so wasn’t pleased with the doc­tor’s re­sponse to her ba­by’s death.

“She tell me she re­al sor­ry about that and she hopes my fam­i­ly don’t cuss her too much,” she said.

She said doc­tors lat­er met with her and God­dard and told them they were sor­ry about the way things hap­pened.

“They told me if they could turn back time and do things dif­fer­ent­ly, they would,” Car­ring­ton said.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, North West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty CEO Ter­ron Gilchrist con­firmed Car­ring­ton was a pa­tient at the hos­pi­tal and that an in­ves­ti­ga­tion had been launched in­to the case and the find­ings would be re­vealed to the fam­i­ly. Gilchrist sent his con­do­lences to the fam­i­ly and said the moth­er was al­so of­fered coun­selling.