Empty.This is how Vishwanie Lal-Ramsingh described herself yesterday, after her first child died inside her womb on Thursday.Lal-Ramsingh was taken to hospital on Tuesday complaining of severe pains, but nurses told the 25-year-old she was not ready to have the baby and she was given an injection for pain. She eventually delivered a stillborn baby girl.
Speaking to the T&T Guardian from her bed at the San Fernando General Hospital (SFGH) yesterday, Lal-Ramsingh said she feels like she now has a hole inside her."I carried this baby, this life, inside me for eight and a half months, now I just feel so empty that she is gone," she said."I wish I could have her with me, healthy and alive."Lal-Ramsingh said the hardest thing she has to do now is say goodbye to Sara, the name she gave her daughter, a second time.
"The hardest part is Tuesday (the day of the funeral). I don't know how I will see her come and go again, I don't know if I can face that again," she said.But her husband, Ravi Ramsingh, 26, has laid blame for the death on the nurses and doctors at the hospital, saying even though his wife suffered from hypertension during her pregnancy, she was ignored by staff members on Wednesday night when she complained of contractions.
"I don't understand what went wrong between Wednesday night and Thursday morning. When I left the doctor told me mother and baby were doing fine," said Ramsingh."They ignored her cries, she told them she was having pain and they gave her an injection. I want to know why they did this? My baby is dead because of their negligence."
Ramsingh said the pain of losing his child is only being made greater by officials at the hospital, as he feels he cannot get closure."We signed documents on Thursday authorising the autopsy, but when I came this morning they said it will be done on Saturday morning instead," he said."I think they are waiting for the body to decompose so they could say the cause of death is inconclusive."
Ramsingh is also questioning the methodology of doctors at the hospital, saying in the four days his wife has been warded, she has been treated by four different doctors."One doctor discharged her when she first came. When I came for her another doctor had already taken blood for testing," he said."Every doctor telling us something different and nobody knows what is going on."