Emotionally shattered after delivering a stillborn baby at the San Fernando General Hospital, Venezuelan migrant Difranceis Robbles says she not only lost her baby but any chance of starting a family with her Trinidadian common-law husband.
By Sascha Wilson/ Guardian
Robbles said she consented to tie her tubes during the C-section because she thought her unborn baby would survive. Sadly, on January 2, 22-year-old Robbles gave birth to a stillborn girl.
It was her third C-section, but the first baby for her husband Amit Gannah.
The couple is blaming negligence by the medical staff for the loss of their baby.
With assistance from a translator app on her cellphone, she lamented, “They took a life from me. We wanted the baby a lot. I took care of myself a lot. We always went to the clinic with my husband and they took away the last chance to have another baby.” With tears streaming down her face, she recalled that when she got to the hospital she was in excruciating pain and bleeding. She said she begged the nurses and doctors to help her but the caesarian was only done hours later.
Although she felt something was wrong, Robbles said she did not think that her baby was dead.
Gannah said the doctors at the maternity clinic told them that she had to do a caesarian section. He claimed that in her medical files it was stated that if she experienced pain or any complication a C-section ought to have been done immediately.
He said his wife first took in with pain on Tuesday, December 29 and was rushed to the hospital. She was prepped for surgery but it was not done.
Instead, he said she was injected with pain medication and discharged the following day. She was given also an admission slip to return to the hospital on January 7 for the caesarean section to be done the following day.
But, on Saturday, January 2 around 1 am she started experiencing severe pain and was taken to the hospital via ambulance. Her common-law husband said on the way to the hospital, the baby was moving. They got there around 1.30 am and an hour later the doctors told him they were not detecting the baby’s heartbeat.
Gannah said they told him they wanted to wait another hour to see if she could have a natural childbirth. He explained to them that she was supposed to have an immediate C-section, but it was not until 5.30 am that she was wheeled into the theatre. She spent five hours in the theatre and then his baby’s lifeless body was brought to him. Robbles sobbed, “I just want fairness to be done because it is not right for them to play with the lives of babies. Other people have experienced the same thing and this is not fair because after so long with a baby inside, feeling it inside of you and then losing it due to medical oversight. I want justice done because it cannot continue like this.”
Robbles claimed that she was ill-treated numerous times by the staff when she visited the hospital and questioned whether or not it was because she was a Venezuelan.
Gannah initially gave the hospital permission to take care of his baby’s body, but now he wants the body released to him so he could have a private funeral. He also wants to be present for the autopsy. Gannah believes his wife would need counselling because she has not stopped crying.
She discharged herself from the hospital last week Tuesday.
The South West Regional Health Authority is investigating the couple’s claims.