Dead babies at K.H.M.H. leads to doctor’s suspension
Lack of resources is often blamed for the state of Belize’s health care system. But sometimes people die not because of a lack of equipment or staff, but because the medical team didn’t communicate with each other or even worse, simply didn’t care. Tonight News Five brings you a story of two women whose experiences, if they hadn’t spoken to the media, might have just been added to the statistics compiled in Belmopan. Because they spoke out, and someone listened, a doctor may actually be held accountable, and removed from the staff of the K.H.M.H. Janelle Chanona reports.
Tracy Bainton
“When I come out of the theatre and thing, the first person I ask for, I ask where is my baby. But nobody tell me my baby dead. I no even get to hear my baby cry, not even for the first or the second.”
Lavern Meighan
“I never got to hold my baby when it was living, not at all. It was when she was already dead, they give me her to hold.”
Tracy Bainton and Lavern Meighan did not know each other when they arrived at the K.H.M.H., but the two women shared more than the same room in the maternity ward. They both left the hospital without the babies they carried for nine months and they both blame the hospital for their loss. Like so many women in Belize, Bainton went to a private doctor for her prenatal care, but knew she would have to go to the K.H.M.H. to have the baby for financial reasons. She was listed as a high-risk patient because she had given birth to a stillborn baby girl three years ago. To minimize the risk this time, Tracy’s doctor induced labor one week before her due date. On the night of August 2nd, Bainton was admitted to the K.H.M.H.
Tracy Bainton
“At that time, no doctors were around me at that time; it was only the nurse, right. The nurses tell me, “Darling, we don’t have nothing to do with it; we have to abide by what the doctors say and what the doctors are doing. I agree with them.
In the morning, she tell me she would make the doctors come over to me to talk to one of them, right. I had was to wait until they did what they had to do and they come over to me about eight thirty. That time I was in a lot, a lot of pain. I could not take it anymore. I ask them, please cut me because I cannot born this baby so she tell me like this, they say they going check me. They check me, a Spanish looking Cuban doctor and a colored one, a slim body one. They come in and put their hand up inside me, bust the water bag, you know. I was having a lot of pain.
As she come in, the Cuban doctor come in and she hear me saying, “I want cut, I want cut.” She went back through the door like she was not paying me no attention or nothing. I had a lot of pain and the nurses try help me and thing like that. They try help me and I still couldn’t born this baby. I was at nine centimeter from about around three o’clock in the evening. And the nine centimeter didn’t want to go to ten so I was begging them. I say, “Nurse, please talk to the doctors.” I tell them please ask the doctor to cut me cause I lost my first baby already and didn’t want to lose the second one.
They still didn’t want to cut me and after Dr. Reyes come in and she try to help me born the baby. She tell me I could born the baby but I know I could not born this baby cause the nine centimeter did not want to go to ten.”
By the time an emergency caesarean section was ordered, it was too late. Tracy’s baby had died inside her.
In the bed beside Tracy was 30 year old Lavern Meighan. She had been trying to have a child for the last ten years and just about given up hope. Her first labor pains merged with the excitement that she was finally to have a child of her own. She too was listed as high risk, because of her age. She had been attending the high-risk clinic at K.H.M.H. for the entire pregnancy. Lavern was admitted to the hospital with labor pains on the morning of August 3rd.
Lavern Meighan
“5 minutes to 6 I get to hospital. When I get to hospital, I was pleading with them, “please cut me because I am in terrible pain and I can’t born the baby”. A Cuban doctor named Doctor, Doctor Concores, she was the one who was delaying the c-section. She only tell me try born the baby, try born the baby and they put me off. And then I didn’t have baby until 12:30 that night, to bring in Wednesday the 4th.
They cut me and I was under the anesthesia right, and when I come to I ask where my baby was. Nobody tell me, “Lavern, your baby is sick” or nothing. They give me no details about my baby. With all I ask to make me go see my baby, they tell me when I could walk then I would go see the baby, later on in the day.”
When Lavern finally saw her daughter, she was in an incubator and was being given oxygen. She was told by pediatrician Egbert Grinage that her baby might not make it because it had swallowed fluid contaminated by fecal matter. Lavern visited with her baby for about an hour and then returned to the maternity ward. She never saw her child alive again.
Lavern Meighan
“They come 5 minutes to 9 o’clock for me that night and the nurse at maternity ward come and tell me that they want to see me at special care. And then I start to cry and ask she if my baby dead and she said, no, they just want to talk to me. I ask her please make they take me and when I get there they didn’t have on none of the things that they had on on her, to try make her get life, right.”
Janelle Chanona
“Both Tracy and Lavern’s stories are remarkably similar. They both hold the doctors they describe, responsible for the deaths of their children. But after initial hospital investigations someone else might be responsible.”
Francis Smith, Medical Chief of Staff
“The directorate of the hospital along with the Ministry of Health officials have determined that Dr. Lavel Reyes was the person fully in charge and she has been suspended on half salary pending further investigations.
Investigations suggest that perhaps there was a breech in management protocol. In the case of Lavern Meighan, the pediatrician was not called and that’s also a part of management protocol. But it’s also doubtful whether the pediatrician would have… It would have been an ideal situation but at this time we can’t determine whether he would have influenced the outcome.
I would also like to clarify that on TV statements were made regarding Cuban doctors which were quite surprising to us because we have determined that the doctor in question, Doctor Santiesteban, really handed over management of the cases to Dr. Reyes which is also part of management procedure. Mention was made of two Cuban doctors and in fact again, that was misleading. The other doctor was in fact Dr. Concalvez, a Brazilian Belizean doctor, because she’s now naturalized.”
Smith says he believes there is serious problem with communication between the patients and their doctors. He says it is possible neither patient knew Doctor Reyes was in charge of their cases. Smith says neither mother has made a formal report or complaint to the hospital. In fact he didn’t even know about Tracy Bainton’s case until we told him.
Francis Smith
“Perhaps with these events, it is time for us to revisit management protocols and it is our responsibility to give clear directives to our nurses. If Tracy Bainton was in fact a high-risk patient then yes she should have been accessed on admission by a specialist.
I would like to extend my heartfelt condolences to the mother of the child and to her family members ever mindful of how hopelessly weak and useless words can be in the face of such irreplaceable loss.”
Tracy Bainton
“I was really set and prepared for my baby. Sometime I sit down and think, I say, I wonder if I was, you know, too excited like that for my baby why my babies die. But when I think about it again, I say it’s not that. I say if the nurses cut me because they know I had to be cut, the doctors, my baby would be right here right now; me and my baby.”
Janelle Chanona
“Both babies were buried on Friday, August 6th. While Lavern Meighan says she isn’t sure whether she can get pregnant again, Tracy Bainton says if she ever decides to have another child, she won’t be returning to the K.H.M.H. Janelle Chanona for News Five.”
Dr. Smith says the hospital management and the government are attempting to establish an autonomous hospital run by a board of directors which would have the capacity to hire and fire, but there is strong resistance from the nurses union. Sources tell News Five that Dr. Lavel Reyes is linked to a number of other infant deaths. Her case will be reviewed by the Public Service Commission. Dr. Reyes has declined to speak with News Five.
