Mother claims negligence in death of newborn
The tragic story of eighteen-year-old Cenaida Reymundo starts in Punta Gorda and leaves a trail of tears all the way to Belize City. The young mother is tonight mourning because after giving birth a little over a week ago, her young infant passed away Tuesday night at the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital. The pregnant mother was admitted to the Punta Gorda Town Hospital on May eleventh. The following night she began experiencing contractions but the nurses on duty were dealing with other patients. It was past visiting hours so Cenaida was without family members. The baby was coming and her screams for help went unanswered. Reymundo recounted the tragic story today.
Cenaida Reymundo, Mother of Deceased Baby
“The pain, my one starting now, getting worse getting worse and worse, yelling at them now. The baby was born and she started screaming and they were not listening still. I yelled to them four or three times, five; I don’t know how many times I yelled. Nobody come, screaming again, the baby born. Nobody still coming. Screaming again bout three or four times, nobody coming so I get up off ah di bed when di baby done born and di baby look blue or black; I can’t tell the colour. I pick my baby up, get out of di bed. I grab my baby, knock it on the back, ker it outside, then finally they coming when I done di get out on di side walk by di hospital. Now, they coming now walking at their own speed. Now my baby is dying, stay like three or five minutes not breathing. They asked me where did the baby born – in the bed. Why did you get up? Because the baby is dying. And then they watch the floor and they just start worrying about the mess; not my baby.”
Jose Sanchez
“Who was worrying about the mess?”
Cenaida Reymundo
“The nurses. And then I tell di nurse I feel bad. So di baby just still look black so di nurse get and they just grab the baby and knock it a lee bit and then they cut di baby off from yah or something and dehn ker di baby. But di baby was—the umbilical cord was still on its neck. And they still do what all dehn di do. When they took the baby, I tell the lady I feel bad. So the doctor tell them give me oxygen and then the nurses say she no feel bad, the baby look bad. Meanwhile, I feel like I’m dying, I feel like I’m falling asleep and my heart is beating fast. And then this lady just watch me and she seh she noh look bad and basically if she have the permission fi she, leave her there, she would ah she dat. But she just she “she noh feel bad”. I just watch her and I just shake my head meanwhile, I’m dying right there. So the oxygen, they give me the oxygen and they ker di baby. They send the baby to Dangriga and from there they bring to Dangriga, they she they have him right there and they say the baby is bad and ih have to tek ultrasound because he she he have brain damage from not breathing for five minutes and they suppose to have wah ventilator but they no have dah Dangriga. So they send we to Belize in an ambulance but the ambulance bruk down three minutes from the hospital. We walk lee bit and ih bruk down, ih bruk down, and ih finally bruk down. So we neva have no phone on the ambulance so they have to stop vehicles fi call Dangriga back and tell them to go and pick me up. Lucky for me, PG ambulance mi just di come and deliver wah person weh get drop in a motorcycle or something happen to him. So they gone and get we back and they ker we again to the hospital and then the helicopter come. When they come, they ker we to the this side but then now they neva have no ventilator in this hospital in Belize. So they hoping that somebody—actually they were saying fi pray somebody die which we religious and we don’t do that. Now my baby dead last night. Ih really look bad. My baby supposed to be home right now with us and the family. Now my family is falling apart. Everything is bad right now. I gone to the hospital to deliver a baby, to have a baby alive. If I knew they wouldn’t take care I would have asked someone to deliver the baby at the house but ih look like I ker my baby just to die at the hospital suffering for seven days.”
Jose Sanchez
“Do you blame the nurses and the doctors? Is it the entire system with the breakdown of ambulances, not having ventilators? Just not having enough people on staff? Is it the healthcare system?”
Cenaida Reymundo
“They have people they just don’t care. I don’t want them to get fired, I want them to just every time when a patient reaches the hospital, to be attending to patients so this doesn’t happen to my child.”
Jose Sanchez
“So you want them to be caring.”
Cenaida Reymundo
“I want them to care. They don’t give a damn what they do at the hospital. I want mek they care about the people. If they don’t like the job they should get out and go home. We believe in God. We don’t want revenge, we want justice.”
A post mortem examination is being conducted on the unnamed baby. The Reymundo’s have another child, two year old Laura Naomi.
