Teen mother dies days after C-section

An 18-year-old North West District resident died yesterday morning at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) days after she had a caesarean-section operation during which she delivered a healthy baby girl.

Olinka Emmanuel of Sebai Village died around 7.20 yesterday morning in the Intensive Care Unit of the Georgetown Hospital. Relatives said that the death came as a shock even though she had appeared unwell after being discharged from the institution on Friday.

This newspaper has since been told that while the GPHC is investigating the case, it is not being treated as a maternity death since Emmanuel died after she was readmitted to the institution. Officials are awaiting the results of a post mortem examination scheduled for tomorrow.

Olinka Emmanuel
Olinka Emmanuel

A distraught Vincent Emmanuel, the Toshao of Sebai told Stabroek News last evening that it was after a clinic visit that his daughter was admitted to the Port Kaituma Hospital since her blood pressure was very high. The man noted that high blood pressure is a condition which runs in his family. At the time, the teen was eight months pregnant. This was her first pregnancy.

Vincent said that Emmanuel who was the third of his nine children was transferred to the city on Sunday. He said that at the time he did not know why the teen was being transferred as all she said when she called him was that she was being transferred to the city. On Tuesday he said a C-section was done and the baby was successfully delivered.

According to Vincent, on Friday morning his daughter and the baby were discharged. He said that shortly after her discharge the teen called him and informed him that all was well and that she was waiting on the father of her child to send money so she could book a flight back to the North West.

He recalled telling her that if the man took too long he would book the flight as he wanted her to go home. Vincent who had travelled to the city last Tuesday for a conference said that he called home and told his wife and other relatives that the teen was well and that he was going to book a flight for her to come home.

“Yesterday afternoon [Friday] when I talking to her everything was all right,” he recalled while adding that when he called her phone yesterday morning it rang out.
He said that his cell phone subsequently rang and a woman who was looking after her while she was hospitalized and when she was discharged called and told him that the doctor wanted to speak with a family member.

Vincent told this newspaper that right away, “I get a different feeling.” He said that at the hospital after a 30-minute wait, the doctor told him that his daughter had died.

He said that the doctor explained that she had been discharged last Friday but she returned to the hospital just before 5am. “He said that it looking like she had some complication illness and they try and they try and they weren’t successful and the girl pass away. But he suggest is heart failure,” Vincent related. He told Stabroek News that he was left shocked because as far as he knew his daughter did not have heart problems. He said that he knew she had pressure problems.

He noted that since he arrived in the city he had not been able to see her since he was busy with the conference, but he would often speak to her via cellular phone. “I am shocked because they tell me she get discharged and I talk to her on the phone and they say everything is alright and she gon travel home so this is why I feel a little bit different,” he said.

Vincent said that given the fact that she had pressure problems, she should have been hospitalized a little bit longer and it may be she did not get enough attention. He said that when he questioned the woman who was looking at his daughter, he was told that when Emmanuel was discharged “the girl foot swell big big.” He said that he had thought that after the baby was delivered she would have been hospitalized for about a week.

He said that after being discharged she also complained of a fever and she had taken some medication that the hospital had prescribed for her before she left last Friday. He said that it was just after taking this medication that her condition took a turn for the worse.

He is hoping that by Tuesday he would be able to transport his daughter’s remains back to Sebai for burial. He is also hoping that he gets some financial assistance to have this done.

In the meantime, he said that the baby is a patient of the Georgetown Hospital. After Emmanuel was readmitted, so was the baby.

Over the last few years there have been dozens of maternity death and the blame invariably has been laid at the feet of the staff.  On June 4, a healthy Luan Rodney died after her uterus ruptured during delivery. Rodney was due to deliver her baby on May 22. Owing to the amount of time that had elapsed her clinic referred her to the GPHC where she was admitted and a pill inserted on the night of June 3 to bring on labour pains.

It would appear that after the pill was inserted, Rodney who was already a mother to a little girl was not monitored. In the end both Rodney and the baby died.
The obstetrician who was on duty at the time was subsequently sent on administrative leave.

A few weeks later 29-year-old Hotoquai, Region One resident Orian Williams died at the same institution. She had been air dashed from Mabaruma following the unsuccessful delivery of her premature twins followed by haemorrhaging at her riverain village home.

A relative of Williams had explained that she went into labour at home and delivered the premature stillborn twins. She then began haemorrhaging and was rushed to the village health centre from where she was immediately transferred via boat to Mabaruma.