New controversy in country’s checkered ‘obstetric performance’
Tabloid Correio da Manhã reports today on a new outrage to compound the country’s checked treatment of pregnant women. If proved to have happened exactly as reported, this is another story that will become politically weaponised.
According to the paper, ‘E.C’. who lives in Seixal, and was in her 40th week of gestation (ie the baby could have been safely induced at any point) went to five hospitals in 13 days, complaining of intense abdominal pain and general ‘heaviness’ in the abdominal area.
On the first call to the SNS 24 pregnancy hotline, on June 10, E.C was sent to Setúbal Hospital’s Obstetric/ gynecology department.
“The baby was evaluated. They told me everything was all right”, she tells CM.
Six days later, however, the expectant mother started feeling pains again. This time, she was seen in Hospital de Barreiro, and again told to go home.
“They did a CTG (to monitor the baby’s heartbeat), and everything was good”, says the woman.
Three days later, E.C. once again sought emergency treatment, this time at Garcia de Orta, in Almada – and again she was told everything was fine.
E.C. tells the paper that the hospital did not admit her, as there were no available beds.
Two days later, she suffered a new ‘crisis’. “I called the SNS 24 hotline and they sent me to Cascais Hospital. There they told me they had no space. I refused to go home, and they ended up sending me in an ambulance to Santa Maria”.
The 37-year-old entered Santa Maria on June 21, where it was decided to induce her.
“On 22nd I tried to have a normal birth, but it wasn’t possible. They did an emergency cesarean. My daughter was born with 4.525 kgs (meaning, a very large baby) but a weak heartbeat. They tried to reanimate her, but she didn’t make it”.
How could this have happened? A baby already so large, and so clearly full-term, why was delivery not performed in the first hospital, on June 10?
CM has tried to find out, asking only questions to Santa Maria, where the baby died.
According to information given to the paper, it was decided to induce a normal birth because E.C had experienced two previous normal births, and the last baby had weighed 3.9kgs – thus there was no reason to believe, perhaps, that this third baby would be so much heavier.
By the time the medical team realised the baby was not coming ‘naturally’, and its heartbeat was dropping, they decided on the emergency cesarean.
“It was at this point that a large hematoma of the large ligament of the uterus became clear”, this “made it harder to make an incision in the uterus and substantially delayed the extraction of the fetus. The newborn showed signs of life, but could not survive the episode of low oxygenation suffered in the moment that preceded the birth”, writes CM.
E.C. has told Correio da Manhã that her last consultation with a family doctor came at the beginning of June, when she was told she would be ‘accompanied by an obstetrician’.
“My daughter has been delivered, has died and I still haven’t received a letter from the hospital”, she said. In other words, she has not been accompanied by an obstetrician, even though the baby’s due date must now have passed.
For the time being, the ULS Almada-Seixal health unit responsible for clarifying this situation has said it will leave any statements for ‘the next few days’. E.C. meantime awaits the results of an autopsy on her baby, and has said once she has the results, she will decide whether or not she should be moving forwards with an official complaint.
Source: Correio da Manhã
