Doctor Mendez concerned about sick women at Northern Regional Hospital
There are more allegations of medical malpractice at the Northern Regional Hospital to which the Ministry of Health is yet to respond. The incidents started after the abrupt transfer of two local doctors who resisted the transfer and subsequently resigned. The issue was ventilated in the House of Representatives by Orange Walk East Area rep, Marco Tulio Mendez, but the Minister of Health said they were being replaced with good doctors. On Monday night we reported on the sad story of an Orange Walk woman who suffered through a hysterectomy, two comas, pneumonia as well as a lung infection after giving birth to her son at the Northern Regional Hospital on October second. Alicia Pott’s newborn also had to be hospitalized for days after delivery because he suffered brain damage. But Pott is only one among a host of women making allegations of medical malpractice at the hospital. Several of the affected women have sought the assistance of Mendez, who is also a pediatrician. He spoke to News Five about some of the other reports he has received and says he is greatly concerned about the large number of cases.
Dr. Marco Tulio Mendez, Area Representative, Orange Walk East
Marco Tulio Mendez
“On the first of September somebody reported to me—this is the patient reporting to me—she is a forty year old patient that was admitted also for a c-section, an elective c-section and she started with labor pains. During the labor apparently, she was not able to deliver the child and a c-section had to be done. Now, from what she stated, the child had to be rushed to the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital; the child was having serious convulsions. I’m a pediatrician and I already saw the child. That child has brain damage. Also, the mother says that during the surgery they cut her bladder and she had to be with a tube for about a month. This is just one case that happened on the first of September. But on the ninth of September, there is another one that had a normal delivery at the Northern Regional Hospital and she was sent home but afterwards she came and she was bleeding. They re-examined her and they saw that she had a fistula from her rectum to her vagina. She has been seen in private clinics with that problem whereby she stools through her part. Just imagine that, that is a serious complication. But there are many cases. Children with fractured clavicle, many of them have had also aspirating what you call meconium during the asphyxia. Asphyxia is just that there is a lack of oxygen to the baby and then the baby starts to have distress, the baby starts to have breathing difficulty. That could cause serious problems to the child’s breathing effort and also lack of oxygen to the brain and many, many complications afterwards okay. There have been about twelve children with that that they have reported to me that happened at the Northern Regional Hospital so that’s a lot. This other patient that also had a delivery at a private clinic, it was on the third of October because she had been at the hospital for three days and she had not delivered. So she went to a private hospital and they did a c-section two hours after she came out of the Northern Regional Hospital and the child died. She had a very serious, severe asphyxia and the child died.”
Dr. Mendez says another mother went to his clinic, the Northern Medical Plaza, after spending three days at the Northern Regional Hospital and her baby wasn’t delivered. While he was lucky to survive, the child was born with respiratory problems and had to be hospitalized for days.
TO SAVE THE LIVES OF THE BABIES, THIS HOSPITAL NEEDS TO BE CLOSED TODAY!
Hopefully the problems can be identified and corrected, but people of Belize should not tolerate even one more bungled child-birth there. Lives are being ruined and destroyed.
PM Barrow, to be fair, either put a doctor in charge of our Ministry of Health, or appoint an electrician to serve as Attorney General. Your profession should be treated no better and no worse than the medical profession.
These are serious allegations & I know for a fact this mothers are totally devasted to hav this kind of complications. A lot of us cant afford private healthcare so we trust the public facilities we need to make the government step with this issues. We are trusting this doctors & nurses our lives although complications can arise even in a simple cough you have. These are not coincidences these are facts. We need to hear from the minister of health. Thanks Dr. Mendez for being the spokesperson for these women…
where do the Barrows go for healthcare? Miami, Houston USA. where does Finnegan go for healthcare. Detroit USA, oh and we the taxpayers pay for their bill. Gapi, says he is not a normal person. Elrington says , he travels a lot and he does not watch local News. do we really beleive that these blogs will change their attitude. look at the fiasco in Cayo, Sedi insulted all Cayo people and pratically told them to @#$K themselves. we have been down this road before. a child died in KHMH after mistakenly having surgery for Dengue, a twin evaporated into thin air at this same orange Walk hospital, a woman delivered her own baby in Cayo Hospital because the staff would not attend to her adequately.. All this did not move BARROW, so why will this be any different?
Perhaps Dr. Marco Mendez is not the best voice for these people as he is both a Political competitor to the Minister of Health, as well as his Private Clinic (Northern Medical Plaza) stands to benefit tremendously by discrediting the entire Northern Regional Hospital.
I’m not here to defend the Public Health system, but if I am broke or dirt poor, I wouldn’t even get a tissue to blow my nose from Dr. Marco Tulio Mendez’ Hospital! Instead of bashing the entire Northern Regional Hospital where many of us were treated successfully, why not focus on why the Hospital has so many bad reviews.
I believe that these families deserve compensation for their grief and perhaps it would be better if a Law Firm would accept to do some Pro Bono work here, not to sue the Hospital dry, but to hold Doctors, Nurses, and Hospital Administrators accountable when they are DOWNRIGHT NEGLIGENT!
To Ms Pott and the other young mother, sorry to hear about your ordeal. Having a baby is supposed to be a joyous moment, not a nightmare.
This has been happening for years, not surprise most of these doctors have no specialties they are general practitioners performing surgeries and other procedures without any training and who pays for these mishaps .The public:
Dr. Mendez, you know that you nuh have no concern fu d mother, this is all in the name of POLITICS and MONEY for you. So do the world a favor and just shut the !@%$#% up. I am sure that all the mothers had to pay consultancy fee.
thats wat u get when u have an electrician being minister of health…