The Ministry of Health says they are still looking into the exact circumstances surrounding the loss of Vishalini Lata’s baby at Lautoka Hospital earlier this week and a post mortem will be carried out tomorrow.
Permanent Secretary for Health, Philip Davies has today revealed that due to factors in the mother’s previous medical history her pregnancy was considered to be high risk and was being managed as such by her doctors.
Davies says initial enquiries suggest she may not have consistently followed medical advice during her pregnancy and labour, and initial reports suggest that she had signed out against medical advice from the Nadi Hospital on two previous occasions during her pregnancy.
Davies says if she had been in labour in a hospital, the fetal heart monitor may have given signs that the baby was in trouble earlier and perhaps a timely cesarean section could have changed things.
He adds that while there can be no guarantee that this tragedy could have been avoided, it does highlight the importance of mothers to be making full use of the antenatal services and advice offered by the ministry.
Davies says the ministry does not condone unprofessional behavior from any of their staff including doctors and nurses and those found to have behaved inappropriately may be subject to counselling or other disciplinary cases.
He says the Lautoka Hospital has confirmed that the doctors had spoken to the father immediately after the still birth occurred and explained that they would continue to counsel him, his wife and immediate family members.
He adds they consider posting pictures of a stillborn child to a public forum is truly disturbing.
Meanwhile, the family members claim that the woman had gone to the Lautoka hospital earlier this week but was told that the baby was due on April 18th.
She later had labour pains at home and was taken to the Lautoka hospital.
She gave birth about 10 minutes after her arrival at the hospital.
The family including the husband were happily waiting outside however they were chased by the midwives when they start asking what happened to the baby.
After about an hour and a half, the woman was transferred to another bed.
The doctor then advised the family that the baby was already dead in the womb.
