New mom dies after outbreak at Markham hospital
Delay in probe into 3 strep A cases caused by lack of sharing info
Kyra Barkey could have died from strep A in her uterus mere days after giving birth to her third child. Another young woman and patient of Markham Stouffville Hospital, who contracted the disease a week after Barkey was admitted to the hospital with strep A, was not so fortunate and died after giving birth.
Barkey’s husband, Ryan, initially shared the joy of birth with his wife and then, days later, the agony of death with the deceased woman’s husband while at the hospital.
“We feel fortunate … but just so awful (the mother didn’t make it),” he said.
The hospital and York Region Public Health continue to investigate how the disease was contracted in both cases and if the second case was related to the first. There have been three confirmed cases in all.
Neither the hospital nor public health shared information about the death when yorkregion.com initially attempted to find out about what had occurred. Instead, Markham Stouffville Hospital (MSH), which is well-regarded for its maternity and fertility program, waited for more than a week before releasing information about the death and the number of strep A infections.
On Feb. 27, Lisa Joyce, the hospital’s head of communications, confirmed “a mother did die of a severe form of group A strep infection while she was in our hospital.”
York Region Public Health referred all questions to the hospital during this time.
On Jan. 28, Barkey gave birth to Evelyn, who, other than some jaundice, was a healthy child.
Kyra and Ryan, both 28, who used to live in Stouffville but now reside in Lindsay, Ont., left the hospital within three hours of delivery.
Three days later, Kyra woke up from a nap at 11 p.m. dehydrated. Over the next few hours, she would wake up each hour asking Ryan to fetch her water — in that time, she drank five glasses of water and three Gatorades.
Soon after, her hands and feet grew swollen and developed a tingling feeling.
The following day, the pain was so bad she had to be helped to the car on her way to Uxbridge hospital.
Doctors and nurses at the small hospital quickly jumped into action after Ryan saw Kyra’s blood pressure stood at 90/ 45, so low that the risk of death is possible, because organs can stop functioning normally.
Optimal blood pressure is 120/ 80.
“I felt weak and light-headed,” Kyra said, Ryan adding that her breathing sounded laboured by this point.
“The amount of attention at such a small hospital was shocking,” Ryan added, explaining it was only after he overheard a nurse describe Kyra as “septic,” meaning it might be life-threatening, that he knew just how serious it was.
Kyra was rushed to MSH, sirens blaring, and then taken to the intensive-care unit, where she had a slew of blood tests, a blood transfusion and multiple IVs put in.
By midnight on Feb. 1, doctors could see a bacteria growing in her blood, which, the next day, was identified as strep A. When baby Evelyn was brought in for a checkup on her jaundice, she was rushed to the neonatal intensive-care unit when doctors discovered an in- fectious patch of strep A on her skin on Feb. 2. The bacteria was not found in her blood and, after taking antibiotics, Evelyn was fine.
On Feb. 9, Ryan met a man in one of the hospital’s kitchenettes who was excited about the birth of his child.
“He was a very friendly guy, just so nice and excited about the birth,” he said.
Two days later, in the neonatal-intensive care unit, he told Ryan the bad news.
“He said, ‘My wife had what your wife had and she passed.’ He cried a little, I had a few tears, that’s when it all hit home,” he said.
“He was a first-time dad — it was hard to imagine how awful it must have been for him.”
Doctors decided that Kyra, who continued to suffer from very low blood pressure, should have her uterus scraped of a tissue they thought might be the source of the problem. After two such procedures, the tissue was successfully removed. It was found to contain strep A. Kyra said she immediately felt better and was discharged on Feb. 14.
Markham Stouffville Hospital said it declared an outbreak in its childbirth unit on Feb.15 and it “continues to follow all outbreak protocols.”
“Like all hospitals, we have an obligation to report group A strep cases to public health and we did so immediately,” said Lisa Joyce, the hospital’s head of communications. “As soon as there were indications of a group A strep case on the unit, we instituted enhanced cleaning measures and restricted visitors to the unit. We also proactively notified patients who would be coming to the unit about the increase in infections and the restrictions we had put in place.”
York Region Public Health said there were 34 cases of strep A in 2015, 31 in 2016 and 34 in 2017, adding that it’s not required to publicly post community or institutional outbreaks on websites.