A probe of the circumstances surrounding the death of Tirtawattie Shoandeo, the Berbice woman who died at the New Amsterdam Hospital last month, hours after a surgery that was interrupted by a blackout, found no error on the part on the medical team, Chief Medical Officer Shamdeo Persaud has said.
“I concluded everything in my realm, in the technical realm, was right on target and the right intervention had”, been made, Persaud, who is leading the technical aspect of the investigation, told Stabroek News.
“Everything in the crisis that the doctors did was on target. Homeostasis must be complemented as they did not leave the patient ‘to the elements’… but manually monitored the patient and did everything they should and they did exceedingly well,” he added.
Shoandeo, 47, of Lot 129 Whim Village, Corentyne, Berbice, died at the hospital on January 20th, hours after undergoing a surgical procedure that had been interrupted by a blackout.
Her family has said that as she was undergoing surgery on January 19th, there was a power outage, leading to a frantic search for someone to turn on the standby generator. The generator operator was never found and surgeons and the woman had to wait until the power was restored. During the outage, the woman’s surgeon left the operating theatre twice, to go to his car for a mini-light and then shortly after in search of a flashlight.
Her family believes that the power outage contributed to her death in some way since the resulting lighting was insufficient and needed medical devices were not operational.
Persaud stressed that the patient did not die on the operating table but hours after. He also pointed out that power returned to the institution 17 minutes after.
However, he said that gaps were found on the maintenance front and recommendations were made. “We identified that there were gaps in the non-technical aspect but there are still other reports to be made pertaining to that aspect. The PS [Permanent Secretary Leslie Cadogan] and administrators will oversee the rest of the reports coming from the CEO of the Berbice Hospital and of the Berbice region among others,” he said..
Suggestions made were that the generator be overhauled by a competent team or firm and that there should be some training of local personnel on how to manage it.
The shoddy physical conditions at New Amsterdam Hospital came in for criticism from Health Minister Dr Bheri Ramsaran, who had pointed out that he was “shocked and sickened” at the physical conditions at the facility. His comment had come in wake of the investigation into the Shoandeo’s death.
When Stabroek News visited the hospital last Thursday, there were still cobwebs hanging in the pharmaceutical area. This newspaper tried several times to reach the Chief Executive Officer of the Hospital Allan Johnson for a comment on the situation. Each time he stated that he was busy and up to yesterday efforts to get a comment from him proved futile. When another official was pressed for a comment, the official said that it is a matter for the CEO to address and not him.
During the visit to the hospital, Stabroek News noticed that mobile rechargeable lights were given to head nurses of different wards in preparation for emergencies. The nurses had to sign a record indicating that they had collected the lights.
A source from the hospital informed that the generator is an automatic generator but over time it developed technical difficulties. As a result, it has to be manually turned on by a hospital porter when the need arises.
However, the source explained that the generator does not power the entire hospital. The sections powered are the operating theatre, the X- ray room, the Intensive Care Unit and the Emergency Room, among a few other areas.
