A young woman has died after delivering a stillbirth at the New Amsterdam Hospital.
Dead is 24-year-old Toshana Wilson, who had been admitted as a patient at the public health facility on Friday.
According to her mother Melena Wilson, her daughter had gone to the hospital to conduct some tests, since she had been attending the high-risk clinic as a result of her diabetic condition.
On Friday, it was discovered that her blood sugar was low, and she was admitted to the hospital for observation.
“They say her pressure was a little high. I asked her if she was in labour and she said, ‘No, there is no other problem, just that,” the grieving Melena Wilson explained.
According to her, on Saturday, several units of insulin were administered to her daughter, but the daughter told her that the dosage was too low, based on what she had been taking daily at home.
“She normally takes 30 units of insulin in the mornings and 20 in the evening; that is what controls her blood sugar. She told me that she told them, but they not listening to her.
“She could tell you how much without you testing her as yet. If it is high or low, or if it is high; that is, over the amount of the machine. At about 6:30, she called me crying and told me that her belly was hurting and her blood sugar was high.”
According to the mother, relatives took the woman’s personal blood monitoring machine to the hospital, and when they did the test themselves, Toshana’s blood sugar level was recorded as over 600 millimoles per liter, the mother said.
The hospital then administered insulin; however, in the wee hours of Sunday, Toshana was taken to the Intensive Care Unit.
At about 06:00h, the mother said, she went to the hospital to check on her daughter.
“She said, ‘Mom, after I took the insulin last night, I didn’t feel my baby girl kicking anymore’. I tell her that her baby maybe tired, because she was disturbing me all night and baby girl maybe need to rest. She say her tummy feel stiff…and I left and come home.”
On Sunday morning the woman was informed by medical personnel at the hospital that the unborn child had died. According to the mother of five, on Sunday afternoon she was told that her daughter’s blood sugar level was normal.
“The doctor come out and speak to me, and I asked her how is Toshana and she told me that she is going okay, but the baby died, and I told the doctor that I know. She told me that her sugar was over 100 and that was close to low. I said please give her this egg ball and make sure that she eat it, because she have to get strength to push out a dead baby. I told her that I am afraid because her blood sugar does drop low and she does go into a coma. I asked her not to get it down, but let it keep up a little,” Wilson revealed to this publication.
Wilson added that, at about 19:00h on Sunday, she tried contacting her daughter via telephone but did not get through, and after trying for more than an hour, she asked the father of Toshana’s baby to visit before he went to work that night.
“When he go, I called him and he tell me that nobody come out to him, and I tell him to rap on the door. He said a nurse said to wait. In the midst of that, I hear one scream. I had the phone on speaker and my daughter-in-law ask if it is not ‘Tiny’, we dose call Toshana ‘Tiny’. She ask if is not ‘Tiny just scream there?”
The 54-year-old woman said that, shortly after midnight, she was informed that her daughter had died. The woman said that based on what she was told from several persons at the hospital, she wants a proper investigation into the death of her child, even as she is alleging negligence by medical personnel.
Regional Health Director Dr Vineshri Khirodhar has assured that a full and thorough investigation is being carried out into the incident.
