Maternal Death at Western Regional Hospital…

Norberta Sanchez

First it was rats that took over the Western Regional Hospital, then recently a huge rodent bit a newborn baby. There is also the case of a snake that bit a nurse at the hospital in the nation’s capital. So where will it all end? Tonight, we have another disturbing story; it involves a case of the maternal death of a mother of four who hemorrhaged extensively, following a surgery at the hospital a week ago.  Norberta Sanchez, a resident of Big Falls, Toledo, had carried her pregnancy to full term before being admitted to the Southern Regional Hospital last Tuesday.  Doctors at the facility informed the expecting mother and her husband that they were unable to perform a caesarian section on her since they did not have the necessary equipment available.  Sanchez was then transferred to the Western Regional Hospital where she was operated on shortly after her arrival.  It is unclear what transpired during the surgery, but Sanchez continued bleeding profusely from her womb and required an additional procedure to stem the hemorrhaging.  That process was also undertaken in Belmopan.  When the doctors were unsuccessful in their attempt, Sanchez was again transferred, this time to the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital where three pints of blood had to be removed from her.  Despite all attempts to save her life, Norberta succumbed on September tenth at the K.H.M.H., leaving behind her newborn.  Earlier today, we spoke with her husband, John Romero, who detailed the horrific experience his wife underwent during the final days of her pregnancy.

John Romero

On the Phone: John Romero, Husband of Deceased

“We went traveled to Dangriga from Tuesday and from Dangriga we spent some time there, she was under observation and then we waited a bit until an ultrasound was done on her.  This was in the afternoon, Tuesday afternoon and then Doctor Arana told us that we don’t have the equipment required to conduct such a surgery here so he is referring us to Belmopan.  So what happened on Tuesday evening at about 4:30 thereabout, we left Dangriga via the ambulance heading towards the Western Regional Hospital in Belmopan.  When we arrived there the doctor told us that yes we should have a… section here and they would prepare her almost immediately as we arrived there.  So went again and waited about twenty-five to thirty minutes and she went into the operating theater.  Now at the operating theater, apparently she was taken there just about under ten fifteen minutes and then the baby came out.  The baby came out in healthy condition and I met them in the corridor taking the baby to the ward and then I waited outside and shortly after that, about twenty minutes to half an hour the nurse came in and told me that the doctor is already performing another surgery to remove the womb.  And she brought a letter, a consent form for me to full out but the surgery had already been in progress so I signed the consent form because if that was going to stop the bleeding, according to her, then that is fine with me.  So she told me that the wound was not contracting and that was what was causing the bleeding.  So they took out the womb and then they sewed her up again and then they told me I’d have to wait until two hours later to see her in the ward.”