'Health centre did not turn away woman in labour'

A woman who gave birth in a car was not turned away from a public health facility and agreed to go the hospital using her own transport, Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh said on Friday.

He was responding to an urgent question in the House relating to Simone Chadee who gave birth in the back seat of a car in Marabella on January 18. She had gone to the health centre but was told there was no place there for her to deliver the baby.

In his answer to the House, Deyalsingh said the woman previously had two home deliveries and one hospital delivery. He reported she turned up at the health centre at 3.15 pm and was examined by a qualified midwife and a doctor.

"At no time was she turned away."

He said she was advised based on her dilation and based on the condition of her cervix "it was the express opinion of an experienced midwife and a doctor that she had more than adequate time to reach a hospital for safe delivery. She left the facility at 4.15 and turned up at San Fernando (General Hospital) at 6.15."

Deyalsingh described it as a "case of damned if you do, damned if you don't."

"Suppose we had kept her in the health centre and she had a difficult delivery (with) post partum haemorrhage, shoulder dystocia (baby's shoulders become lodged in the mother's pelvic), placenta abruption (placenta separates early from the uterus) and she and the baby died you know what would be the question being posed to me? Why did we keep her in the health centre?"

Fyzabad MP Dr Lackram Bodoe asked about implementing a protocol for a patient to be kept pending arrival of an ambulance to go to hospital and Deyalsingh said those protocols already exist.

"She came with her own transport. She agreed to go the hospital with her own transport at 4.15. Doesn't it make more sense for her to use her own transport than wait for an ambulance to come from San Fernando General Hospital? Again is damned if you do, damned if you don't."

Chadee had told the media she started having labour pains and hired a car to take her to the Marabella Health Centre. She had said, however, after a nurse briefly checked her dilation the staff told her they did not have the facilities to deliver the baby.

She said the driver, knowing there would be traffic at that time which would make getting to the hospital difficult, instead took her to the Marabella police station and her water bag burst in front of the station. Chadee safely gave birth to her fourth child, Athena, in the car. When they got to the hospital, the baby was been given a clean bill of health and weighed 2.8 kilogrammes.