Trinidad: Husband claims wife’s death after giving birth due to hospital’s negligence

(Trinidad Guardian) The griev­ing com­mon-law hus­band of 26-year-old Maquad­er Mar­tin wants an­swers be­fore his wife is laid to rest.

Davis Nedd is claim­ing that his wife’s death was due to neg­li­gence on the part of the med­ical per­son­nel at the Ma­ter­ni­ty Ward of the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

Mar­tin died on the floor near the bath­room area of the ma­ter­ni­ty ward on Sat­ur­day, three days af­ter she gave birth to her first ba­by.

South-West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty’s (SWRHA) Di­rec­tor of Health Al­bert Per­saud con­firmed that an in­ves­ti­ga­tion has been launched in­to the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing her death.

An au­top­sy re­vealed that she died from a pul­monary em­bolism. The T&T Guardian spoke with a vis­i­tor and a pa­tient who were on the ward when Mar­tin died.

They both con­firmed that Mar­tin dragged her­self to the bath­room af­ter she was re­fused a bed­pan. They al­so claimed that af­ter she col­lapsed, she was left there for a long time be­fore be­ing at­tend­ed.

He said some­one alert­ed the nurs­es that she had col­lapsed. “About sev­en or eight min­utes af­ter they went and check her. And they call the doc­tors af­ter they re­alise is wa­ter more than flour. Up to now that still both­er­ing me when I think about it,” he added.

Nedd is sus­pi­cious of the au­top­sy re­sults as it was done last Sun­day in the ab­sence of any rel­a­tive or Mar­tin’s iden­ti­fi­ca­tion doc­u­ments. He is try­ing to have a sec­ond au­top­sy done.

Nedd has al­ready sought le­gal ad­vice. How­ev­er, Per­saud said even if Mar­tin col­lapsed that would not have caused her death.

The fam­i­ly has not yet con­firmed Mar­tin’s fu­ner­al arrange­ments.