A young mother is distressed after losing her one-day-old baby boy on October 31 at the George-town Public Hospital (GPHC) and felt he could have been saved had a caesarean-section (CS) been performed.
Aneza Raoof, 21, of Anna Catherina, West Coast Demerara, told Stabroek News about the horrifying experience she had with being in labour pains for nine hours. She was not dilating and was left to suffer.
She still has not obtained a copy of the post-mortem results.
A health worker told this this newspaper that a CS should have been performed in a case like this and that the baby likely died because the prolonged labour caused “fetal distress due to oxygen deprivation.”
Raoof’s husband, Ameer Ali is asking for an investigation to be conducted.
He said too that disciplinary actions should be taken so that another mother does not have to suffer a nightmare like his wife.
Raoof recalled that during the nine hours of excruciating pain the baby tried to force his way out.
Even though she kept pleading desperately with the nurses to help her and telling them that “the baby was ready to come, they ignored me. Then one of them told me that I must push my baby out.”
She recalled that since she was admitted to the hospital around 11 pm her pain was intense. Around 1 am they took her to what she believed was the labour room, after a family doctor checked with them, but they just left her there.
Around 8 am when the doctor called again, she was finally taken for delivery. Even then she was still not dilating.
After much struggle and sustaining a vaginal tear some three centimetres long, the baby was born around 8:40 am.
She said no doctor or nurse was present, just a midwife who stitched her very roughly and according to her, “The pain was worse than what I had before…”
Ali saw the baby briefly while performing a prayer in his right ear, an Islamic act done for newborns, as the nurse was holding him.
During that time he observed that the baby was making a strange sound.
He brought it to the attention of the nurse who just brushed it off, saying that nothing was wrong and promptly took the baby away.
He later found out that it was a warning sign that the baby was in distress.
After that Raoof said she was going to the washroom when she noticed froth coming from the baby’s mouth. When she asked about it she was told “that’s normal.”
By the time she came out of the washroom the nurses had cleaned that baby’s mouth.
Around 5 am the following day health workers informed her that “there was an emergency and that the baby was in a critical condition. They took me to another room and after about 10 minutes I was able to see the baby.”
The doctors told her that the baby’s heart rate had dropped and that they had “somehow managed to bring it up… I was looking at the monitor about 6 o’clock and I noticed that it stopped and suspected that my baby had died.“
Right after, the health workers “came and told her that my baby is no more.” It was the worst news any mother can receive.
Ali said too that it was also very difficult for him and the rest of the family to deal with the loss of the baby, especially after they had been preparing to welcome him home.
They never imagined that they would have had to plan his funeral.
Ali said that following the death, a doctor told him that the baby had a lot of complications and that the heart was enlarged and the stomach was not functioning properly.
He said they found it hard to believe after ultrasounds, including one done two weeks prior to the delivery showed that the baby was healthy and that there were no issues with his organs.
The doctor also informed him that it was the hospital’s policy to conduct a PM. Subsequently, the hospital gave them a slip of paper saying that they would give the results of the PM later and that the remains of the baby had been released for burial.
