Health Minister Dr Fuad Khan has said the pregnant woman who delivered her baby in the toilet of the San Fernando General Hospital should have been listened to. “It is up to the professionals, the nurses, doctors, if a person needs to have a delivery and that delivery is taking place with the amniotic sac sealed, that person has to be taken seriously and put on a bed and dealt with, instead of saying, ‘Wait, it is not so.’
“Check the patient,” Khan advised, during an interview on CNC3’s Morning Brew show on Wednesday. Khan said overcrowding, which is being blamed for the baby mishap at the hospital’s maternity ward on Monday night, is a problem throughout the health system. He said it tended to happen “when you have a finite amount of beds and a constant flow of patients and nobody is discharging accordingly. “Some people are staying on these beds as long as three and four months,” he said
“Now if you have a finite amount of beds and you have someone there for three and four months, on a system, you would eventually have what is called critical mass. You would eventually have no beds.” On Monday night, an Oropouche mother gave birth in a toilet at the hospital. She has said nurses ignored her when she told them she was in labour. The woman, who also has an older child, said various managers at the hospital had since apologised to her.
The young mother, who spent the night in a chair, after being given eight stitches as a result of the unorthodox delivery, accepted the apology. She said her main concern was for her newborn son. “His sugar level keeps going down and doctors are monitoring him right now,” she said in a brief interview on Wednesday. She said she has been discharged, but remains on the ward, because she does not want to leave without her baby.
She said she was given a bed on Tuesday after several new mothers were discharged. Medical director of the hospital Dr Anand Chatoorgoon said the perennial overcrowding at the institution gave rise to the unfortunate incident on Monday night. While it is not an ideal situation, Chatoorgoon said, overcrowding happens from time to time because of the high demand for the services offered from at least half of the country’s population.
The SWRHA yesterday issued a release apologising to the patient and her family “for any possible trauma or discomfort she may have suffered as a result of this unfortunate incident.” The authority said it was ensuring that the baby, who was still in the Neonatal Unit, was receiving all the necessary care and attention possible, and an investigation was being done.