Dear Editor,
As we open the daily newspapers what we notice is the constant maternal and child deaths that have been taking place not only in central Georgetown but also in other areas like Linden, New Amsterdam and Port Mourant. For the year there have been three stillborns, eleven maternal deaths, one abortion death and one woman left bedridden.
A recent mother, Olinda Fredericks, lost her baby. She was two weeks overdue and the pain was too much for her, so she suggested a c-section but was refused. Her husband also pleaded for a c-section because her blood pressure was going up and she could not make the birth the natural way. If they had done what the patient asked for, the baby might have been alive today. Another young mother, Padminie Goberdhan, is bedridden after a rough delivery.
Minister Bheri Ramsarran was reported in the November 18, 2012 Stabroek News as claiming that haemorrhaging accounted for more than half of the maternal deaths last year. What is the cause of the maternal deaths and stillborns this year?
We are not blaming the administrator, but something is wrong that needs to be fixed. If nothing is wrong with the system then why is this happening over and over again? The government needs to find the problem and deal with it, because too many women have lost their lives and the lives of their babies. If the hospitals monitored their nurses during deliveries then we don’t believe that this problem would exist.
Who is going to take responsibility for what is going on in many of the health institutions? Whose fault is it? Stop killing our women, mothers and caregivers due to negligence. This is a problem not just for us as women but for the whole society. We are the producers and reproducers of labour; without us there is no economy.
Women and children are losing their lives due to domestic violence in the home but we are also losing our lives due to another form of violence, the negligence of some of the nurses and doctors in the various hospitals.
Yours faithfully,
Susan Collymore
Grassroots Women Across Race
