The family of a La Romaine woman, who died three days after she gave birth to a healthy baby girl at the San Fernando General Hospital, is blaming negligence for her death.
The family of Maquader Martin, 26, also believe the hospital is trying to cover up the incident because the post-mortem was done on Sunday in the absence of any family member.
The autopsy, according to her family, found that she died from a pulmonary embolism (a blood clot in the lungs).
Baby Ayla Maquader Nedd was discharged from the paediatric ward of the San Fernando Teaching Hospital yesterday morning.
After leaving the hospital with his baby, Martin’s common-law husband Davis Nedd and her sister Gaileen Davis, came to the Guardian’s South branch where they broke down in tears several times as they recalled the tragic incident.
The family claimed that a nurse refused to give Martin a bedpan on Saturday and while was returning from the bathroom she fell on the ground and died.
Nedd said it was his wife’s first pregnancy and she had no complications. She attended all her clinic appointments at the hospital and also did private examinations and ultrasounds to ensure that both she and her baby were healthy.
“She was excited about being a mother. She was so happy, she could not contain herself,” said Nedd.
He recalled that Martin’s water bag burst around 9.30 am last Wednesday and an ambulance took her to the hospital. Martin had the baby around 5.38 pm through natural childbirth.
She said, “I was allowed to witness the birth of my baby. They rest our baby on her chest and she (baby) started to cry a little. All her (Martin) pains left when she saw the baby. She (Martin) started to laugh.”
Nedd said there were no available beds at the Post-Natal Ward so his wife had to sleep on a “big soft” chair.
Martin, however, was assigned a bed sometime after midday the following day (last Thursday).
Nedd said both his wife’s legs were swollen and painful. Davis, who visited Martin that afternoon, said she was “looking palish,” she complained that her legs were hurting and she could not walk.
Davis said her sister had complained to the nurses and the doctors. She said the nurse gave her sister an injection for the pain. “When I heard that I found it very strange and it was a red flag for me because I know they don’t do that when you are breastfeeding.”
Davis said on Friday her sister again complained about having pain and feeling weak. When Nedd called his wife on Saturday around 2.30 pm, she told him she “had a feeling” they would discharge her.
“She said she feeling good. I asked her what she wanted to eat and she said a subway with no pepper.” When he arrived in front of Subway’s restaurant in Marabella about 45 minutes later, he said he got a call from Martin’s phone.
He said it was a nurse who told him the doctor needed to talk to him urgently. When he arrived at the hospital, he saw Martin’s mother Meryl Davis hustling towards to the hospital.
He said, “I asked the mother what happen and she did not answer me. I just knew something strange happen. I ran up the step and I went straight to the ward and I go to her bed and I saw the bed without a sheet and the baby not there.”
Nedd said a man, who witnessed the incident, told him when she fell the nurses were alerted. “And the nurses come by the door and they look at her and went back. he claimed. A few minutes after they pick her up. She was already dead, he also claimed.
South West Regional Health Authority chief executive officer Keith Mc Donald said a statement would be issued, but up to late yesterday, none was provided.