Hospital justified refusal on grounds that obstetrics department was closed
The now perennial chaos in pediatric/ obstetrics and gynecology emergency cover reached yet another dismal low-point today with a hospital actually refusing to take in a woman suffering a miscarriage.
The justification given by Caldas da Rainha hospital was that the unit’s obstetric emergency department was closed.
The 32-year-old woman was told to call ‘112’ (the national emergency number) outside the hospital.
That a woman in such medical and psychological distress could be treated in this way will no doubt be the subject of (further) heated debate. As it was, she was later admitted – but not after considerable delay, and conversational back-and-forth with first responders.
According to RTP news this afternoon, if it had not been for the insistence of local firefighters (who took the 112 call via the CODU central exchange), the outcome could have been very different.
Firefighter chief Nélson Cruz painted a powerful picture of this incident, saying the woman was in her car, desperate for help, in tears, in pain and suffering heavy bleeding.
Initially, CODU told firefighters to transport the woman to the ‘nearest’ hospital with an obstetrics service available -132 kms away. But they argued that she was in no condition for such a journey, or even for the delay it posed in getting her the help she needed.
Then, firefighters were told that a doctor would come out to the carpark to attend the young woman. That did not happen.
Over an hour later, a security guard emerged to say firefighters could bring the woman into the hospital (which had refused initially to treat her).
As Nélson Cruz told RTP, it is “completely inadmissible” that a person in need of medical assistance could have been treated in this way.
“Hospitals have to open their doors, whether they have a specialist available, or not. People have to be stabilised, even if they are later transferred elsewhere”
PS Socialists (under whose watch the crisis in obstetrics/ pediatrics began to take hold) are preparing to meet this week with hospitals where pediatric and obstetric/ gynecology emergency services are regularly closed. They have appealed to the prime minister to present measures to respond to these difficulties (as he pledged to do during the election campaign).
A poll today in tabloid Correio da Manhã already has health minister Ana Paula Martins at the bottom of approval ratings: syndicates continually blaming her for the failure of pay review negotiations. But today’s incident marked new ground, in that a woman in such distress was literally turned away from a public health unit that should be open to all comers, the services and salaries of which are ultimately paid by the nation’s taxpayers. ND
Source material: SIC Notícias/ RTP
