Probe completed, action to be taken against doctors, nurses – Health Minister

Death of mother, newborn

An investigation has been completed into the death of 31-year-old Vanessa Lewis-Sahadeo – who died along with her newborn after giving birth last Saturday.
Lewis-Sahadeo of Williamsburg, Corentyne, Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne), had delivered her fourth child and was transferred to GHPC is an unconscious state, where she succumbed. Her baby had died a few hours prior, at the New Amsterdam Hospital.

Health Minister, Dr Frank Anthony informed on Monday that an investigative team managed to complete their probe, assuring that action will be taken against medical personnel who erred and caused the woman’s death.
The Minister said, “We had a very unfortunate death at the New Amsterdam Hospital and already, we have sent an investigation team. They went there yesterday (Sunday) and have completed an investigation and when I get those recommendations, we will take actions against the nurses, doctors and whoever is at fault in that unfortunate death.”
The woman’s father, Eric Lewis, had told this publication that he was told that doctors were forced to remove her uterus in New Amsterdam. Lewis-Sahadeo had gone to the prenatal clinic at the Port Mourant Hospital and was expected to return within two weeks.  However, within a few days, she went into labour.
Her mother, Charis Cecil, said on the evening of February 21, her daughter called and told her she was getting labour pains. The grieving mother explained that they visited the Port Mourant Hospital the following morning where Lewis-Sahadeo was admitted and then transferred to the New Amsterdam Hospital.
She detailed that she was only able to have telephone conversations with her daughter during the rest of the week as Lewis-Sahadeo remained a patient at the New Amsterdam Hospital. She said because of COVID-19 guidelines she could not see her daughter but nonetheless took food for her every day.

She said she received a telephone call on Saturday from someone who identified themself as a nurse at the New Amsterdam Hospital.
“She tell me that she have something to tell me and she take a long time and then say that the baby died and that they had to remove her womb,” the mother said.
This, the woman said, prompted her to rush to the hospital and according to her, when she arrived there her daughter was on a stretcher.
“They had doctors around her and one of them had something in his hand pumping and every time he squeeze it she shaking,” she recalled, adding that she tried to find out from the doctors what the matter was but none of them responded to her.
“Like is Cuban doctors and they can’t understand me so they just talking in their own language all the time and I can’t understand what they saying, and nobody tell me anything till I start to cry because I see like she dead already then a nurse come and tell me that she is not dead and they taking her to Georgetown.”
According to Cecil, they waited hours for the ambulance to transport her unconscious daughter to the city medical facility.
“The ambulance come and it did not carry her, it take somebody else. We wait a long time before it come back and then they put her inside.”
Asked what time she arrived at the New Amsterdam Hospital, Cecil said it was sometime before 16:00h, adding that when the ambulance returned to New Amsterdam to collect her daughter it was almost 18:00h.
“Whole week she was at the New Amsterdam Hospital, none of them could not check her to see if something wrong. Now they telling me that the baby died inside her and so they had to take out her womb. When we ask them to see the baby they say that we can’t see the baby and that the baby was deformed,” the woman said. (G12)