– family calls for probe

A Linden family is calling for a thorough investigation into the circumstances surrounding the death of a 35-year-old woman and her full-term undelivered baby, while in care of nurses at the Linden Hospital.

Tricia Winth

Tricia Winth and her unborn baby died in the early morning hours of Sunday.

According to Usibo Winth, the husband of the dead woman, his wife was complaining of headaches which were making her uncomfortable. He said he took her to the Linden Hospital Complex where she was admitted shortly after 7 pm on Saturday.

He said his wife’s blood pressure kept rising rapidly. “She asked for some water and I left to go and get it for her,” he said. “I had to go way down the road to get it and when I came back her condition had not improved. All this time they did not call the doctor and they knew she was a serious case. I had to be asking them to check her pressure. They had enough time to do what they had to do to save my wife and my child.”

The man said he returned home leaving his wife in the care of the medical personnel, but became worried when he received a call from the hospital shortly after 1 am on Sunday. “By the time I could get myself together to go back to the hospital, I got another call saying that my wife just died and my baby too. Something is definitely wrong and I need to get to the bottom of this.” The woman was the mother of three other children aged 13, ten and seven years old.

When contacted, Chief Executive Officer of the Linden Hospital Complex Gordon Gumbs said that an internal investigation is being done and as such he could not provide any details. He said that over the past weeks the hospital was unable to conduct any emergency surgical procedures because the process of transferring the operating theatre from the old facility into the new one had not yet been completed. Because of this, all emergencies had to be transferred to Georgetown.