Senior Reporter
derek.achong@guardian.co.tt
A woman, whose baby died of birth complications less than a week after being delivered at the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex in Mt Hope in March, has threatened to sue for medical negligence.
The woman, whose identity was withheld due to the nature of the proposed case, made the threat in a pre-action protocol letter sent yesterday by her attorney Ashley Badal to the North Central Regional Health Authority (NCRHA), which operates the State-run health institution.
In the correspondence, obtained by Guardian Media, Badal claimed that her client suffered physical and emotional pain and suffering while giving birth to her first child and after her eventual death as the hospital and its staff failed to provide the standard of care required of them.
The woman was 26 weeks pregnant when she was admitted to the hospital on March 17 after complaining of vaginal bleeding.
Two days later she was transferred to the maternity ward to give birth.
The woman claimed that she was experiencing difficulties in giving birth and the doctors that were attending to her attempted to pull the baby from the birth canal.
“During the delivery, my client at times had to plead with the doctors not to push their entire hands into the birth canal due to the immense and debilitating pain and agony she was experiencing,” Badal said.
Stating that her client and her husband described the experience as “pure hell”, Badal said, “The pain was tremendous, unbearable, agonising, unfathomable, and left my client and her husband exasperated and totally traumatised.”
The woman’s newborn daughter was transferred to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), while doctors attempted to remove the placenta.
Badal claimed that the placenta ruptured during the procedure and it was not fully removed.
The woman’s baby spent almost a week in the NICU and underwent a blood transfusion before passing away.
An autopsy at the hospital ruled that her baby died of “complications of prematurity”.
However, pathologist Professor Hubert Daisley performed a second autopsy at the family’s request and came to different conclusions.
He ruled that the baby died of traumatic birth injuries to her spinal cord and of complications associated with a breeched delivery of a premature infant.
The woman continued to experience pain after giving birth and had an ultrasound done privately, which confirmed that the entire placenta had not been removed. She then underwent an operation to address the issue.
Badal identified over a dozen alleged failings by the hospital and its staff, which she suggested led to the death of her client’s child.
“The Defendant, its servants and/or agents were negligent in that they failed to take the requisite and/or appropriate and/or timely steps and/or procedures as from the time of admission of my client to the date of her release from the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex,” she said.
Through the proposed lawsuit, the woman is seeking significant compensation including for loss of expectation of her daughter’s life.
She is also seeking reimbursement for the costs she expended for private medical care to address her medical issues allegedly caused by the hospital’s negligence as well as for her daughter’s funeral.
Badal gave the NCRHA 28 days in which to respond to say whether it would seek to settle the case or defend it through litigation.
