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Monday, August 11, 2025

More ba­by, adult deaths spark ac­tion

Deyalsingh to review system

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20151110

Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh says there is an ur­gent need to re­vise poli­cies re­gard­ing ma­ter­nal health in T&T.

He made the com­ment yes­ter­day fol­low­ing a tour of the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, while re­spond­ing to ques­tions re­lat­ing to the re­cent deaths of two ba­bies and a moth­er at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex in Mount Hope.

Deyals­ingh said he be­lieved that many of the cas­es of ma­ter­nal death could be avoid­ed if moth­ers knew their re­spec­tive health con­di­tions bet­ter.

"Do you know one in four women who are preg­nant ei­ther are obese, di­a­bet­ic or hy­per­ten­sive and if they have one or two or all, it can have ad­verse out­comes that we don't want? So we have to start with ed­u­ca­tion and the re­vis­ing of poli­cies and pro­ce­dures with­in the hos­pi­tals," Deyals­ingh said.

He said he hoped the di­rec­tor of women's health on the board could at­tend to the is­sues, with the main one be­ing ed­u­ca­tion.

"Ed­u­cat­ing women be­fore get­ting preg­nant so that they can be aware as to their risk fac­tors. What hap­pens in the pub­lic do­main, the dis­cus­sion goes a cer­tain way in that you want to pass blame, but what I am say­ing is to have a look at the whole thing and start with the women be­ing giv­en the prop­er ad­vice," he said.

Deyals­ingh al­so point­ed out that women these days, es­pe­cial­ly pro­fes­sion­al women, are now de­lay­ing child­birth un­til their 40s, which he said on­ly in­creased the risks.

"That is why we have to start with ed­u­cat­ing the pop­u­la­tion and have a look at poli­cies and pro­ce­dures with­in the sys­tem," he said.

Re­gard­ing ba­by Asia Marie Small's death on Mon­day, Deyals­ingh said he un­der­stood the emo­tion be­ing ex­pressed by the ba­by's par­ents, but said that there was a process that must take place be­fore an­swers could be giv­en.

"First of all the au­top­sy has not been per­formed yet, but we can't do or say any­thing un­til that au­top­sy has been done. I know every­body wants an­swers im­me­di­ate­ly but we have to go through the process be­fore," he said.

He al­so dis­closed that he was ex­pect­ed to meet with the Med­ical Chief of Staff at the Women's Hos­pi­tal in Mount Hope, Dr Karen So­han, on Fri­day on the mat­ter, when he was al­so ex­pect­ed to re­ceive an of­fi­cial re­port.

It was re­port­ed that ba­by Asia Marie's moth­er, Chelsea Robin­son, 19, spent over 48 hours in labour, scream­ing and beg­ging nurs­es for help be­fore de­liv­er­ing a dead ba­by born with fae­cal mat­ter in her mouth. Robin­son was a first-time moth­er.

Her ba­by had died in her stom­ach be­fore an emer­gency de­liv­ery, af­ter med­ical staff dis­cov­ered fae­ces had en­tered the womb.

Robin­son and her fam­i­ly are now de­mand­ing an­swers from the man­age­ment of the hos­pi­tal as they fear neg­li­gence may have played a part in the ba­by's death.

More In­fo

Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh con­tin­ued his tour of the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal yes­ter­day–his third day of view­ing the in­sti­tu­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to Deyals­ingh, he used yes­ter­day to show sol­i­dar­i­ty with the health­care work­ers who car­ried out their re­spec­tive du­ties on a pub­lic hol­i­day.

"I am just here to sup­port them and say that I too can come out and work on a pub­lic hol­i­day. I am hap­py to see that there are many pos­i­tive sto­ries com­ing out of the hos­pi­tal that are not re­al­ly heard of.

"This morn­ing (yes­ter­day) I met a moth­er and daugh­ter who were in­volved in an ac­ci­dent and they were brought to tears as they thanked me for the lev­el of care and ser­vice that they had re­ceived here at the Ac­ci­dent and Emer­gency De­part­ment," Deyals­ingh said.

How­ev­er, mem­bers of the me­dia in­vit­ed to cov­er the min­is­ter's tour were not al­lowed ac­cess in­side by min­istry of­fi­cials.


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