GPHC probing claims by patient whose baby died
The Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) is investigating claims that nurses at the health institution mistreated pregnant patient Jennifer Jagdeo.
According to an account Jagdeo provided to the Guyana Time, she suffered grievous mistreatment during and after her child’s birth and subsequent death including having to wait a long period of time before receiving treatment.
In a Department of Public Information (DPI) release, the GPHC Chief Executive Officer (CEO) retired Brigadier George Lewis yesterday expressed his condolences to Jagdeo and her family, noting that the reported issues of mistreatment will be investigated.
“The issue of the treatment by the nurses highlighted by her, we will investigate to ensure that it does not happen again to other patients if it did happen,” Lewis is quoted as having told the Department of Public Information.
He said the hospital has a number of dedicated and hard-working staff providing a proper delivery of healthcare services and the administration will not condone such behaviour from any of its staff before reminding that the administration’s complaints department is open to all.
Head of the Obstetrician and Gynecologist (OBGYN) department Dr. Lucio Pedro, who was also interviewed by DPI, provided a timeline of the institutions interaction with 36 year old Jagdeo who at the time was pregnant with her first child.
According to Pedro after arriving at 12:37, Jagdeo was admitted at 13:14 and delivered of her child at 13:45. The child who was born at seven months after a complicated pregnancy subsequently died.
Jagdeo, according to a DPI statement, had been sent to the hospital without a referral since her private doctor was “busy”.
“She gave a history of a ruptured membrane saying that her water bag burst three months ago. So, she was taken to the delivery (room) and the doctors examined her and found out she was only 30 weeks, a premature baby, and she was breeched. We prepared her immediately”, Pedro is quoted as saying adding that there was a delay due to another patient being operated on in the theatre but Jagdeo’s Caesarean section (C-section) was
performed on as quickly as possible. He continued that once the baby was delivered at 13:45hrs, it was handed over to the senior paediatrician. He stated that the staff observed that the baby was blue, its limbs could not extend and the lungs were not fully developed as a result of the premature birth.
The head of the OBGYN, explained that these complications were as a result of inadequate fluid around the baby which retarded its development. Recognising that not much else could be done for the baby, Dr. Pedro, then recounted that the newborn was taken to its parents and died half of an hour later.
Pedro stressed that a referral from Jagdeo’s doctor would have been helpful to the doctors on call so that they could provide the medical attention she needed.