Dhanmattie Beharry grimaces in pain at her apartment at Lakhan Trace, McBean Couva, yesterday. Photo: ADRIAN BOODAN

BY ADRIAN BOODAN

A Couva woman has been forced to borrow a wheelchair to collect her new-born baby from the San Fernando General Hospital.

A pregnant Dhanmattie Beharry, 27, was admitted to the hospital last Thursday, after exceeding her due date by two weeks.

She gave birth to a baby boy on Saturday, and was discharged on Monday. The baby, however, was kept for observation.

Beharry said that on Thursday, she was made to wait on a bench with other pregnant women for most of that night because of a shortage of beds.

The Lakhan Trace, Mc Bean Village, Couva, resident said labour was induced on Saturday, but claimed the medical staff had put her under the care of a trainee nurse.

Beharry said things were going well until the trainee nurse did routine examination on her.

She said shortly afterwards she started to haemorrhage, and a doctor was called in.

She was taken to the operating theatre where a Caesarian section was performed. She gave birth to a baby boy weighing 3.8 kilogrammes.

Beharry, who lives with her common-law husband Rickie Gopaul, 25, said she later learnt that the child had also defecated in her womb.

She said the child was born with jaundice and was kept in the nursery, but the hospital released her on Monday, claiming that they wanted the bed.

Beharry said she had no choice but to pack up and take the elevator and then walk a long distance to the car park because there were no wheelchairs or wardsman to take her downstairs.

She said she felt extreme pain in her lower abdomen after walking to the car park, and during the long ride home.

The distraught woman said when she called the hospital, the authorities said they would not be able to release her baby into the care of the child’s father and that she must make the journey back to the hospital and walk up the stairs to get her baby. She was expected to collect the baby last night.

Vindra Gopaul, a relative, said family members had to borrow a wheelchair from another relative who had recently undergone an amputation to take Beharry to the hospital.

Another relative said, “We want the Minister of Health to investigate why maternity patients are treated so shabbily at the hospital.

“It’s not like the public is begging for a service when we go there, it’s our tax dollars, our petro-dollars paying the public servants and they have this horrible attitude and an excuse for everything,” the relative said.

When contacted, a spokesman at the Customer Service department of the hospital, said Beharry can make formal complaint with the office located at the first floor of the hospital, then an investigation would be undertaken and a report sent to her.