The Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) is being accused of negligence after a young mother discovered that a piece of gauze was left inside her after she delivered her first child last month.
Getta Singh, 19, gave birth on September 30th but she remained in pain when she was discharged from the hospital on October 3rd.
Her family was also concerned by the odor emanating from the woman’s pubic area.
“We were smelling something like a dead animal and she was still in pain but we thought it was the stitches hurting,” Singh’s mother-in-law, Anita Roberts, told Stabroek News.
In an effort to assist the young woman, Singh’s family took her to a pharmacist on October 5th. After suggesting that she may have contracted an infection, the pharmacist provided her with antibiotics for treatment. However, despite using the antibiotics for several days, Singh’s pains persisted and she began to feel her vagina swelling.
“I was feeling really miserable, in a lot of pain and passing clots all the time,” Singh told Stabroek News.
On Saturday evening, her husband, concerned about the swelling, decided to check his wife. It was then that he discovered a piece of gauze lodged in her vagina.
It appears that the midwife who delivered Singh’s daughter had left gauze in the young woman. Singh, who had suffered a “tear” during labour, had received several stitches to repair her ruptured vagina. However, the gauze, which had been used to stem her bleeding, was apparently sutured inside the woman.
After her husband noticed the gauze, the family rushed Getta to the Diamond Hospital, where the putrid object was removed. Roberts describes the object once removed as “green and foul smelling.”
She told Stabroek News on Saturday night that the doctor who removed the object told her family that it was not long before the wound would’ve become septic and killed Singh.
The family is incensed at the hospital’s negligence, which has marred what should’ve been a happy time. On Monday, Roberts visited the GPHC, where she lodged an official complaint and called for an investigation to be launched into her daughter in law’s case.
She told Stabroek News that she was able to meet with acting Chief Executive Office Allan Johnson and head of the Gynecology and Obstetrics Department Dr Lucio Pedro.
“Dr Pedro apologised. They said sorry and gave my daughter some tablets but I want to know if my daughter de die if they would’ve told me sorry then,” Roberts said.
Roberts wants a full investigation. “They should do an investigation to see what really going on at that hospital. The person who left that pad in her should be found and held accountable because they could’ve killed that girl,” she said.
When contacted by Stabroek News, Johnson refused to comment on the case. He explained that a committee is presently investigating it and a statement would be issued by the hospital’s public relations department at the end of the investigation.
