
…family seeks harsher penalties
-says “suspend them to go and work somewhere else and do the same thing…”
By Farah Bates
As investigation continues into the death of thirty-one-year-old Vanessa Sahadeo and her newborn baby girl at the New Amsterdam Hospital, Minister of Health, Dr.Frank Anthony on Thursday said that a doctor and two nurses who are at fault have been suspended.
A maternity investigation team visited the hospital earlier this week and conducted a thorough probe into the unfortunate deaths of the young mother and her child. Upon completion, Dr.Frank Anthony took immediate actions against the doctor and nurses for their negligence at the hospital.
Sahadeo, a mother of three was admitted to the New Amsterdam Hospital on February 22nd, however, she was expected to give birth on February 25th but not until February 26th she went into the labour room to deliver, where she died shortly after.
According to her mother, Claris Cecil, she noted that Sahadeo’s blood count was low when she was admitted to the New Amsterdam Hospital, as such she was given the name of the drug prescription that Sahadeo needs to use to build her blood and she was asked to purchase it at the local pharmacy. She said she bought all the necessary drugs for Sahadeo to use in order to ensure her daughter’s blood count was high before she went into labour.
Cecil said her daughter was in perfect health when she left home on Monday, February 22nd, further stating that even during Sahadeo’s pregnancy everything was normal.
“Since my daughter go in hospital she calling me everyday and we does be talking long, long on the phone. She does tell me what she want me to take to the hospital and I does make sure she get everything. Up to the day when she died I talk to her. She call me the Friday morning and say mommy they taking me in labour room now because my pressure and blood is okay. She even tell me that when I go afternoon to visit her that I should bring food because after she get baby she will get hungry.”
Meanwhile, Sahadeo’s father, Eric Lewis said he remains in a state of shock and cannot understand how his daughter’s life was taken away so quickly as she was in good spirit hours prior.
“I don’t want them to suspend them and then they gon go work somewhere else. I want to see the faces of the nurses who work on my daughter, that’s what the family wants. What I want is for them to get some criminal charges because that is plain murder, they murder my daughter. Everybody want to protect themselves because when you asking them at New Amsterdam they telling you to ask Georgetown and when you Georgetown is the same thing they telling you, the distraught father said.”
The man noted that he has seven children and none of them has medical complications and so it is hard for him to lose his first child in such a tragic manner.
“None of my daughters never sick, Vanessa was a strong girl and imagine since Monday she went in the hospital and till Friday they decide to operate on her, but none doctors couldn’t check on her and see what going on man.”
Lewis described his relationship with his daughter as a phenomenal one. He said he holds her very close to his heart.
“Anywhere I go she does go with me. The only place she don’t go with me is when I go work and I go to drink. Once she get something to eat, she does ask me, daddy you want piece. It can be anything, water an all she does be drinking and she ask daddy you want some water. She like driving so afternoon we does go and drive and go all over. It’s not easy, it’s not easy at all, that’s all I can tell you.”
A post Morten examination conducted on Sahadeo by pathologist Nehaul Singh revealed that the woman died as a result of hypovolemic shock, abdominal and pelvic haemorrhage, acute lung distress, brain edema and cerebellum herniation.
Joe Lewis, the young woman’s uncle said it is negligence at the hospital that caused his niece’s death and they want Vanessa’s incident to bring about changes in the hospital system, so as to ensure other mothers feel safe and that they are well attended to by the doctors and nurses when they go into the hospital to give birth.
He said that his niece died at the New Amsterdam Hospital before being transferred to Georgetown but those at New Amsterdam wanted to cover it up.
“I was there when they brought her to Georgetown and she was about 90% gone already. When they did the C-section and everything went wrong, they decided to remove the entire womb and they couldn’t have stopped the blood and so she bled all the time. There was no blood and oxygen administered to her, so what they decide to do was to plug her up. They use 30 something pads to stuff her up so the blood flow will stop and then they put on tubes and said they will move her to Georgetown just to deflect the blame on Georgetown.”
He said while at the Georgetown hospital on the night of the incident, he was informed by a doctor that Sahadeo chances of surviving is very low. He said they first tried to stop the bleeding but there was nothing that could have been done at the time, he then said that they were expected to stabilize her and put her under a 24hrs surveillance.
“When they operate on her at New Amsterdam, they chop her bladder. It was massive bungling up there. Why they had to sever her bladder. As for the baby, there was a massive indentation on one side of the baby’s head and blood shots which is consistent with clamping and there was a crack on the baby’s skull. When doctor Nehaul Singh did the autopsy on Vanessa, her brain was white white, there was no blood. So they did not administer blood and oxygen and that’s the bottom line of this problem.”
The first autopsy that was conducted on the baby at the New Amsterdam Hospital revealed the baby died as a result of hemorrhagic syndrome. However, the autopsy done at the Georgetown Hospital in the presence of Joe Lewis, revealed that the baby was a stillborn.
“They did the autopsy on the baby and told us that the baby died from haemorrhagic syndrome and when Dr. Nehaul did the second autopsy he couldn’t have give conclusive on whether the baby was still born or not because based on his autopsy, the baby was a stillbirth so their autopsy report is not reflective of that of Dr. Nehaul. They should have never done the autopsy there so early. What? They tried to cover something up, Joe Lewis said.”
Sahadeo and her baby girl will be laid to rest on Sunday.