A KURU Kururu family is mourning the loss of a 35-year-old mother, who died in the process of delivering her third child at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) on Tuesday night.Dead is Sattie De Jesus. She was admitted to the Public Hospital on Tuesday morning after feeling a bit unwell. According to De Jesus’ husband Odin, his wife was supposed to visit GPHC on Monday but they were of the opinion that it was a holiday, so she waited until Tuesday morning.

“She wasn’t sick…she was due soon,” said the distraught husband. He explained that his wife was due to deliver their third child within the next two months. “She tek in so suddenly,” he told Guyana Chronicle while recounting that he was informed that the baby was breached in De Jesus’ tummy and posed difficulty for her. The couple’s newborn baby is said to be doing fine.

He noted that he was unable to travel with his wife because their five-year-old daughter was asleep and he had no one to care for her in his absence. The couple’s eldest child was in the interior at the time.

Guyana Chronicle understands that De Jesus’ suffered from hypertension during her pregnancy and her blood pressure had gone extremely high. It was due to the rocketing of her pressure that doctors at the GPHC were forced to do an emergency caesarian section (C-Section).

“The child went cross way so they had to do a surgery … her pressure went high and they had to take the child, they cut her and the pressure fly to she brains…seizure, like a minor stroke…she was brain dead.”

Odin told this publication that his wife left for Georgetown from their Kuru Kururu, Soesdyke-Linden Highway early Tuesday morning and at approximately 18:00h in the evening, he received a call from a doctor informing him of the need to visit the hospital as an emergency surgery needed to be done on his wife.

“The doctor called and tell me he wants me to sign for her surgery…I told him he has to give me an hour and half…by the time I leave home and reach down after 8pm, all I see is that she was on life support machine and the baby was already out.”

The aggrieved husband related that the doctor informed him after the surgery that his wife was in a critical condition and “she might or might not make it, there was a 50 per cent chance.” His wife was on life support, with oxygen and heart machines attached to her along with saline. “I left and I went home and they called me after 9pm that night and tell me she gone,” he recounted.

The 35-year-old woman who hails from Phillipi, Kamarang, Region Seven was once a Patient Care Assistant at the GPHC, but her husband noted that she had worked with the GPHC for over 10 years.

According to Odin, he was a bit worried given all of the news about maternal deaths in the Public Health system but noted that he was not in a position to state anything about the treatment given to his wife on Tuesday.

“I was on the Highway so I don’t know what happened apart from what the doctor told me, my sister and my mother…the doctor sit me down and tell me fine, fine what happen to Sattie,” the saddened man told Guyana Chronicle.

Odin said the doctor that examined her wanted to have a CT Scan done but she died just before the scan could have been done. “He wanted to know if she had a stroke or what caused the seizure,” he stated. A post-mortem examination will be done on Friday morning.

When contacted on Wednesday, Chief Medical Officer (CMO), Dr Shamdeo Persaud told Guyana Chronicle that he had received a notice of death that morning and explained that an investigation has been launched into the death of De Jesus. The GPHC he said is in the process of preparing a report that has to be submitted to the Ministry of Public Health within seven days. “Copies of the clinical records, post mortem and the like have to be submitted with the report,” he explained. Dr Persaud noted that a Committee would be established to examine the matter and noted that the post mortem will “identify the underlying cause of death.”

Concerns
Meanwhile, Minister of Public Health, Dr George Norton expressed concern over the report of another maternal death in the public health system and said “this news comes at a time when efforts are being made to reduce maternal deaths.” Dr Norton told Guyana Chronicle that he is awaiting a report on De Jesus. The minister said there has been a decline in the number of maternal deaths in the public health system, noting that just prior to De Jesus there were nine maternal deaths, while there were 16 deaths last year. “That is not to say that the decline is comforting. There should be no maternal deaths,” the minister stated. Even as the country has been grappling to reduce its maternal death figures, it should be noted that a number of the maternal deaths were as a result of hypertension and other related health issues.