Rhon­dor Dowlat

Af­ter try­ing for nine years, Mo­hanie Phaki­ra, 33, of Fe­lic­i­ty, Ch­agua­nas, was fi­nal­ly able to con­ceive and car­ry her first ba­by full term. How­ev­er, some­thing went ter­ri­bly wrong dur­ing the ninth month of her preg­nan­cy, and Phaki­ra's ba­by girl died two days af­ter birth via C-sec­tion.

Emo­tion­al and trau­ma­tised, Phaki­ra is now plan­ning to take le­gal ac­tion against the Mount Hope Women's Hos­pi­tal. "I strong­ly be­lieve that it was be­cause of neg­li­gence that I lost my ba­by, so I am now go­ing to leave it for the courts to de­cide. The emo­tion­al and men­tal trau­ma I now have to live with is not easy at all."

Ba­by Jaya Nao­mi Gay­er­per­sad was born at the Mount Hope Women's Hos­pi­tal on Feb­ru­ary 6, at about 5.04 pm, weigh­ing just over eight pounds.

An au­top­sy per­formed on the ba­by's body re­vealed she died from res­pi­ra­to­ry dis­tress syn­drome caused by birth as­phyx­ia. The au­top­sy was done at the mor­tu­ary of the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex, Mount Hope, on Feb­ru­ary 11, 2015.

Speak­ing with the Sun­day Guardian af­ter ap­pear­ing briefly on CNC3's Crime Watch pro­gramme with host Ian Al­leyne on Thurs­day, Phaki­ra said she was giv­en a let­ter by the hos­pi­tal's clin­ic which in­di­cat­ed that be­cause she was suf­fer­ing from high blood pres­sure they would have to "take the ba­by from her via C-sec­tion on Jan­u­ary 23, 2015."

"But when that date came noth­ing hap­pened, and all that time I was in and out the hos­pi­tal suf­fer­ing from high blood pres­sure," she said.

On Feb­ru­ary 5, 2015, Phaki­ra went to the clin­ic at the hos­pi­tal were she was med­ical­ly ex­am­ined by a doc­tor. "I found that she was lit­tle rough with me and it pained a lot and when I told her, she said that's why I was sup­posed to be hav­ing sex. I be­gan to bleed at that point. The doc­tor then went and con­sult­ed with the se­nior doc­tor who in­struct­ed that I be ward­ed so that they could in­duce labour."

At about 7 pm labour was in­duced. Two hours lat­er, Phaki­ra said her pains in­ten­si­fied.

"I felt my en­tire body get­ting numb, I was run­ning a high fever, I felt deliri­ous and was left alone in a room. I was told that the doc­tor would come at about 6 am to clip the wa­ter bag. How­ev­er, she did not come till about 8 am but my wa­ter bag was not clipped.

"I was in ex­treme pain and vom­it­ing. I kept wait­ing to see or feel wa­ter gush­ing down but nev­er felt any­thing like that.

"I be­gan to pass out some­thing green, it looked like ba­by mess. I kept telling them that some­thing wrong but the nurs­es in­sist­ed that noth­ing was wrong, that it was nor­mal. I took their word for it be­cause it was my first time and I did not know what to ex­pe­ri­ence or what hap­pens, but all I knew was my body was tight­en­ing up on me and I was in pain."

From 8 am that morn­ing, Phaki­ra was put on a wait­ing list for a wheel­chair to take her to the de­liv­ery ward, but it was not un­til 2.30 pm that a wheel­chair be­came avail­able, and when they wheeled her to the de­part­ment she was told that the nurs­es were not ready as they were chang­ing shift.

"While there sit­ting on the wheel­chair I faint­ed. I don't know how long I faint­ed... I was then asked if I was get­ting con­trac­tions and then they hooked up the ba­by mon­i­tor on me and the pres­sure in­stru­ment. I was al­so giv­en IV.

"I was told not to bawl or else I would be left alone. One nurse even asked me if I want­ed to go home with a dead child. I was shocked...still in ex­cru­ci­at­ing pain," Phaki­ra said.

Again, she com­plained that her body was get­ting numb and her vi­sion was be­com­ing dim.

"I again told them that some­thing was wrong, this time with the ma­chine that was hooked up to my bel­ly. They cut it off and then put it back on again and then I start­ed to hear a beep­ing sound. One of the nurs­es pulled the sheet and I knew she saw some­thing. That was when she said they have to do emer­gency C-sec­tion and asked for my con­sent," Phaki­ra said.

"As I was slow­ly go­ing un­con­scious from the anaes­thet­ic, I re­mem­bered hear­ing the doc­tor say­ing the um­bil­i­cal cord was around the ba­by's neck. I then blacked out and didn't wake up till late in the night."

Phaki­ra said af­ter she woke up she was told that her ba­by swal­lowed liq­uid and stool and was not do­ing well. She was on­ly al­lowed to see her ba­by on the evening of Feb­ru­ary 7.

"Again, they had no wheel­chair to put me on so I had to walk to go and see my ba­by. When I got the first glance at her she was hooked up to ma­chines. I was told at that point that my ba­by would not make it," Phaki­ra said.

"I was dev­as­tat­ed to know that so long I had been try­ing to have a ba­by and when I fi­nal­ly got preg­nant and gave birth I would have to lose my ba­by. Why? This was so un­fair."

Phaki­ra claimed that af­ter her ba­by died she asked many ques­tions but got no an­swers. She al­so al­leged that she asked for the doc­tor's name and was told " 'Why? You want to sue? Go ahead! We ac­cus­tomed to that here'."

Af­ter bury­ing her ba­by, Phaki­ra man­aged to get copies of all her med­ical records and oth­er re­lat­ed doc­u­ments and she has con­tact­ed her at­tor­ney.

An of­fi­cial at the North Cen­tral Health Au­thor­i­ty, who did not want to be iden­ti­fied, said an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the mat­ter would be launched.