Casan­dra Thomp­son�Forbes

An au­top­sy on the woman who died at the Scar­bor­ough Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal on New Year's Day af­ter de­liv­er­ing her ba­by via Cae­sare­an sec­tion stat­ed that she bled to death.

The au­top­sy on the body of Rose Gor­don, 35, was done at the Scar­bor­ough Hos­pi­tal mor­tu­ary yes­ter­day by pathol­o­gist Dr Hu­bert Dais­ley.

Gor­don suf­fered from pre-clamp­sia, died from hy­po­v­olemic shock and her lungs col­lapsed, the re­port stat­ed.

In an in­ter­view with the T&T Guardian the woman's sis­ter, Leslyn Gor­don, said the fam­i­ly still need­ed an­swers.

"My sis­ter didn't have to die. With all that is hap­pen­ing I want to find out the re­al rea­son why she died. I am not sat­is­fied 100 per cent with the re­sponse from the staff at the hos­pi­tal. There are still a lot of things we don't know. We have plen­ty ques­tions but no an­swers," she said.

Leslyn ad­mit­ted that Rose had a uter­ine fi­broid. She al­so said fur­ther test­ing would be con­duct­ed on her lungs and uterus and re­sults would be re­leased on Fri­day.

Gor­don de­liv­ered her ba­by girl at 34 weeks and five days in­to her preg­nan­cy. The ba­by re­mains in the Neona­tal In­ten­sive Care Unit at the Scar­bor­ough Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal. Sources say de­spite the ba­by was born pre­ma­ture she is pro­gress­ing well.

Con­tact­ed for a com­ment on the is­sue, Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer for the To­ba­go Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty Dr Nathaniel Duke, said the fam­i­ly's wish­es must be re­spect­ed and per­son­al in­for­ma­tion would not be di­vulged.

The To­ba­go Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty de­scribed Rose Gor­don as a high-risk pa­tient in a press re­lease sent out on Sun­day but failed to give any ad­di­tion­al de­tails.

"The late moth­er who was a high-risk pa­tient, passed away from com­pli­ca­tions af­ter giv­ing birth de­spite con­cert­ed ef­forts by her med­ical team to en­sure the safe­ty of both the moth­er and ba­by," the state­ment said.