It was a case of déjà vu for Siparia couple Merrill Auguste and Anamica Samlal yesterday, after they were forced to deliver their baby girl, Myra, in an ambulance on the roadside. This time around, however, Auguste was not the one who delivered the baby, it was a trained Emergency Medical Technician (EMT). Two years ago, Auguste, 39, of Siparia, was forced to deliver his daughter Maryanne, now two, in the backseat of his car while they were parked in Scotiabank’s Penal branch.
Speaking from her bed at the San Fernando General Hospital yesterday, Samlal admitted she was “scared” during her delivery. “I thought I was going to have the baby in the same car again,” she said.
Auguste said the couple faced a nightmare yesterday when Samlal went into labour at their Siparia home around 2 am, adding she should not have delivered the baby in the ambulance. The father of two called on the South West Regional Health Authority to investigate why his wife had to undergo an ordeal to get assistance at the Siparia Health Centre.
He said his wife began experiencing contractions and he contacted the Emergency Health Service (EHS) and was told they had to wait for an ambulance from Princes Town. Auguste said he lives four blocks away from the health centre and questioned why an ambulance was not dispatched from there instead of Princes Town. He said he was told not to move his wife until the ambulance arrived, some 45 minutes later.
When the couple arrived at the health centre, Samlal was placed on a bed and a female doctor checked her. He said he subsequently had to monitor his wife’s contractions because no one was paying attention to her and the contractions were drawing closer to each other. He complained that a male doctor then instructed him to drive his wife to the hospital himself. “The doctor told me that they not equipped to deal with a delivery or to monitor the contractions,” he said.
The doctor came and he told me it is two to three hours before anything happen, we have plenty time for the baby. There were two ambulances parked in the health centre and they tell me I had enough time to take her to the hospital.”
Auguste, an amputee who lost his left leg in a car accident, said he left the health centre with his wife screaming in pain. He went to the Siparia Police Station but an officer there told him there was nothing he could do. The couple then drove to Penal Police Station where a constable assisted them and contacted the ambulance. He said at this point Samlal’s contractions were one minute apart. At 3.50 am, the ambulance arrived at the Penal Police Station.
“When we got to Debe market, half a mile away, they had to pull over and she had to deliver the baby there,” Auguste said. “The time frame the doctor gave us was wrong, within an hour’s time the baby came and he said we had ample time to get to the hospital. This could have been avoided. This was traumatising for her.” Contacted yesterday, South West Regional Health Authority CEO, Anil Gosine, said he could not properly comment until he got a full report on the situation.
“I know that in emergencies we can deliver in Siparia (Health Centre), I do not know if there were complications. I will have to get a report from the health facility’s manager,” Gosine said.