A 25-year-old mother of three is seeking answers from the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH), where doctors performed an emergency operation on her after she visited to have an Intrauterine device (IUD) removed.
Since then, the young woman said, she has not had a menstrual cycle and feared that her womb might have been removed without her permission.
Earlester Grant-Albert can still remember the hours of August 15, 2019, when an attempt was made to remove the IUD, a commonly used contraceptive, and she was writhing in pain and bleeding severely. The hours and days after that which saw her being operated on are still somewhat of a blur but the young mother said the service provided by the hospital staff, especially the doctor who attempted to remove the IUD, was far from professional and at times she felt less than human.
Believing that her uterus was removed, a notion supported by the fact that she is getting symptoms such as hot flashes which are associated with menopause, the young woman said she filed a complaint with the hospital. But even though she met initially with officials from the complaint authority, it took a letter to President David Granger to trigger a fresh inquiry, during which she met with the hospital’s Chief Executive Officer George Lewis and others.
Still unsatisfied with the hospital’s handling of her case, the young mother said she agreed to have an independent evaluation at the St Joseph Mercy Hospital, with the cost being borne by the hospital.
“They were telling me that my womb is still intact, and I did not believe. I kept asking why I was not seeing my period and why I getting these symptoms and no one could tell me,” she told Stabroek Weekend in an interview.
“The whole thing is that they treated me like nothing. That is how I feel and just keep asking me what compensation I am looking for…,” the young woman continued.
She was not given the report from the doctor at St Joseph Mercy Hospital as she was informed that the GPH requested that the report to be sent to the institution first and they would then contact her to disclose its findings.
That report was issued on March 2, but Grant-Albert said she did not receive a call from the hospital and with the COVID-19 pandemic she did not venture to visit.
“I just get fed-up of it all. It is just me calling or going, so I just say I will speak out about the treatment. They can’t treat people like this,” she said.
Strategic Planning and Communications Manager at GPH Chelauna Providence confirmed that the hospital had received the report and that contact was going to be made with the young woman. She later called Grant-Albert and it is expected that she would visit sometime this week to have to have further discussions with the hospital officials.
Importantly, Providence’s statement to this newspaper indicated that the young woman’s uterus is intact, healthy and normal.
As it relates to Grant-Albert’s complaint about the treatment received, especially at the hands of the doctor who initially attempted to remove the IUD, Providence said that the hospital has mechanisms in place for complaints and redress for when such issues occur and as a hospital it would have to investigate the practices by the doctor who attended to the patient. “We understand she came for the removal of the IUD and it was found after that she needed emergency surgery, which was done,” Providence said.
She surmised that the IUD caused an inflammation in Grant-Albert’s uterus and because of the discomfort and pain it was decided that it would be taken out. But because the infection was so bad it was decided that an emergency surgery would be done to remove the IUD just to ensure that her situation did not worsen.
“It was absolutely necessary because of the pain and bleeding. As a hospital we know patients may not be always be satisfied with the treatment they receive,” Providence said, before adding that Director of the hospital’s Medical and Professional Service Dr Fawcett Jeffrey personally saw Grant-Albert and made recommendations for her recovery.
An investigation into her complaint was conducted by the hospital’s Quality Improvement Department and responding to the woman’s complaint about the length of time it took to conduct the investigation, Providence said at any given time they are dealing with several complaints.
“Because we are dealing with medical investigation that requires… speaking to several parties it can take a little time,” she said.
Following the investigation and the fact that Grant-Albert was not satisfied with the findings, an independent evaluation was recommended and done at St Joseph Mercy Hospital.
And as to the fact that the hospital had not contacted the woman about the findings before she reached out to this newspaper, Providence said this would have been done eventually as she was not clear on when the report was received.
However, Grant-Albert disclosed that the report was completed on March 2, and months later she was still to be contacted by the hospital.
“The report indicates, contrary to her belief, that her womb was not removed. [It] shows her womb is healthy and perfectly intact and normal. We will meet with her, to go through whatever additional concerns… she may have,” Providence disclosed after Grant-Albert agreed for her to share the initial findings with this newspaper.
‘Something still wrong’
Told of the findings by the St Joseph Mercy Hospital, Grant-Albert said she still believes something is wrong.
“I really don’t believe, because how I getting [these] symptoms?” she questioned.
The young mother has three sons ages 7, 4 and 1, all of whom were delivered by way of C-section. It is when she delivered her last child on October 16, 2018 that the IUD was inserted.
“I know some people might want to say that I have enough children and why I want more… But that is not the case. I use contraception and still get pregnant with me last child. The thing is something went wrong, and I want to know is what,” she said. Grant-Albert is married to her high school sweetheart, who is also the father of her boys.
She said August 15, 2019 is a day she would never forget. Because of heavy bleeding and sometimes pain she had been visiting the GPH’s genecology clinic for a while and it was decided that the IUD would be removed.
This was to be done on August 15, 2019 and she recalled that she informed the doctor that the IUD was inserted during her C-section and not through her vagina as is customarily done, but she was informed there would be no issue.
She recalled the doctor unsuccessfully using different instruments to get it out. “A nurse came and used her hand and she told me that she was not feeling any string and that she would leave me alone,” she said.
“The doctor came, and she use another instrument and I could literally feel like if she boring me it was so painful. And I started to bleed severely and right away like me belly start to swell. I feel like I want urine, but it was not coming out and the doctor told me to leave the bed and once I could walk I could go home,” she recalled.
Grant-Albert said she dragged herself to the washroom, where she sat on the floor in agonizing pain, still bleeding even as she called to the nurses for assistance. One nurse finally approached her and inserted a tablet into her anus informing her that it “would make the pain go away and that I need to relax”.
The young woman said she began to get cold sweat and decided to call her mother and while she was still seated on the floor in pain the doctor came and started to write a chart and informed her mom to assist her to a bed.
“I was in so much pain I could not sit or lie down and I was bleeding too but [name of the doctor] told me to lie down so they could insert a tube in for me for me to urinate and just as they do it I start to urinate,” she said.
Grant-Albert said her mother asked the doctor what went wrong, “and her words to my mother was that it appeared as if my inside was ruptured and she then referred me to Ward E”.
She continued to cry out in pain and her tummy remained swollen and while in Ward E she was visited by some doctors who inserted an IV tube, told her again about an internal rupture and that a surgery would have to be performed.
An ultrasound was done, and it showed that she was bleeding internally. After she spent the “whole night crying”, she said, she was taken to the theatre.
“They dress me in the theatre gown, and they said, ‘Miss Grant we are taking you to theatre, but we are uncertain at this time what we are going inside of you to face.’”
She remembered signing a form before she was operated on, but because of her state she did not read it nor can she say what it said.
“When I wake up, it was a bit of hell. I was delirious, my lips were swollen, and I just didn’t know what was happening,” she said.
She spent an entire day “hooked up on machines” and she was later told that the IUD had punctured her womb which caused internal bleeding and also that a tissue in her bowels was ruptured and had to be replaced.
Inflammation
Grant-Albert was discharged on August 19, but she could not defecate as per normal and this created great discomfort. After a while, the young mother realised that inflammation was oozing from her cut in the vicinity of her navel and she returned to the clinic. She said she did not ask to see the specific doctor who had attempted to remove the IUD, but the doctor saw her and called out to her and asked her how she was feeling.
She told her about the inflammation and the doctor removed the bandage and examined the cut and told her all was well.
Not satisfied, Grant-Albert went to another section of the hospital where she saw Dr Jeffrey and after she approached him he decided to examine the area.
“When he press by my navel part, if you see inflammation spurting out and he called the other doctor and asked how she could say everything was okay and so much inflammation was coming out. Her phone rang and she said excuse me and went outside to answer it and never come back inside,” the woman recalled.
She said Dr Jeffrey cleaned the area, bandaged it again, and gave the young woman some antibiotics to use but he did not tell her what was wrong.
She recalled that she visited the clinic a few more times but was unable to see a doctor as the nurses always indicated that the specific doctor whom she had initially seen had her chart.
“In the meantime, I getting hot flashes, dizziness, I feeling weak, moody at times and I start reading up and I realize this is when you in menopause and believe these people take out me womb,” she said.
Frustrated, she decided to visit the Ministry of Public Health and she met with Minister Volda Lawrence’s secretary, who told her to file a complaint with the GPH. She remembered that she wrote the complaint and took it to the hospital and after several calls she finally received a call from an official who invited her to a meeting.
At the meeting, she recounted her experience and the official told her that she was sorry for what she endured and that an investigation would be launched but it would take a while. She later received a letter from the official acknowledging the complaint.
That was around November, but she never heard another word from the hospital.
“I keep calling and calling and you know [name of the official] secretary was even rude to me is like I calling and begging,” she said.
Determined to get some answers, Grant-Albert penned a letter to President Granger detailing her experience and she received an acknowledgment which also informed her that the letter was forwarded to Minister Lawrence.
Following this, she received a call from the CEO of the hospital, who invited her to a meeting which was later convened with himself, Dr Jeffrey, the official from the complaints department and two other individuals.
“They were asking me questions and I wanted more. They were not really explaining to me what transpired. I was asking them why I was not getting my period, and no one was answering. They just tell me that my womb was there, but I didn’t believe,” she said.
“The CEO asked me what I want, and I told him I need justice,” and it was after this that a decision was made to send her to St Joseph Mercy Hospital.
“When I went there and the doctor do the ultrasound, her facial expression alone tell me something was wrong. She was like whoa and she said to me your inside look terrible and my mother was with me and she started to cry, and I told her not to cry,” the young woman said.
She said it was after the examination for the report that the doctor told her the report had to be forwarded to GPH but gave her some hormonal tablets.
“But the tablets had me like burning up and I feeling sick, so I stop taking it and I just stop calling the hospital. I get fed-up and right now I want talk about it because what they do to me is not fair,” she said.
“I just want answers and that is what Georgetown Hospital is not giving me. So, I decide to talk to you, the media. The treatment was not right,” she said.
