By Kristen Macklingam
An 18-year-old woman, who is mourning the loss of her baby, wants justice as she strongly believes her child died as a result of the actions, or lack thereof, of the medical staff who treated her.
Instead of celebrating the birth of a bouncing baby boy, Nicola Alli on Friday buried her dead son and although she was at a loss for words to describe how she feels about what she deems a “preventable death” of the child, she blames the medical practitioners at the West Demerara Regional Hospital (WDRH) for this situation.
In an exclusive interview with Guyana Times on Friday, she stated that the staff at that regional hospital was negligent in their duties and should be held accountable for the baby’s demise.
According to Alli, she was about 41 weeks pregnant and due to severe pains in her stomach, she visited the WDRH on Saturday last for medical attention.
She explained that she was immediately admitted but after various examinations conducted throughout the day, she was told that she was not ready to deliver.
Alli noted that even during her admittance at the WRDH, the nurses were rude to her, even when she had begged that they perform a caesarean section (C-section) to deliver her baby in the initial stages.
She related that she was told that other pregnant mothers were delivering naturally and, therefore, she should not be asking for a C-section and even if that option was considered, the equipment at the hospital was not working.
The distraught woman further stated that the medical staff attempted to do another examination on her but told her that the theatre at the hospital was non-functional.
She was then told that she could not be referred to the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) because her condition was “not an emergency.”
But their opinion changed some three hours after another examination on Sunday morning (May 24).
“On the Sunday I wake up again with the contractions pain they say I ain’t ready. They do back a next examination on me a little while later and they say they could feel the membrane for the baby and [I was] still not ready. But then three hours later, they checked me again and they say that they still feeling the membrane and they not finding the heartbeat for the child so then they call the ambulance to take me to the GPHC.”
However, according to the distressed mother, the ambulance made two stops before arriving at the GPHC. On the first occasion, it was to put off a porter who was travelling inside of it at the time she was being transported and the second occasion was to facilitate the nurses that were debating who should “get the window seat”.
The young lady further explained that upon her arrival at the GPHC, she was rushed into that hospital’s theatre, where she underwent another examination. She was subsequently told that a heartbeat for her unborn baby could not be found.
“They took me to the theatre at the GPHC and they did the surgery. When they spoke with me after the surgery, they said that the child did not make it but that everything was alright with me. What they told me in Georgetown was that the child had drank back the water inside causing the death of my child,” she lamented.
The young mother emphasised that this would have been her first child and first pregnancy, therefore, she is not letting the matter be swept under the rug.
“I need some sort of justice for my child. They tell me it is still birth. But I still don’t understand how can a 41 weeks old child be still birth,” she added.
