A series of events, starting with excessive bleeding that led to shock and cardiac arrest, may have led to the death of mother Candace Santo and her baby at the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex, Mt Hope, on Thursday.
Her husband Stephen Goberban was still trying to make sense of the words which were written on the autopsy results when the T&T Guardian contacted him yesterday, noting he had read them and re-read them.
Goberban still wants to know what they mean and how they could explain the fact that his 29-year-old wife and baby son would never return to their Aranguez, San Juan, home. He said he spent hours sitting outside the hospital mortuary waiting for an explanation of his wife’s death, but instead received a paper and words on an autopsy report. He called on the hospital to answer his questions.
“They have to explain and tell me. Was a doctor there during birth? Why didn’t they do what they had to do to stop the bleeding to save my wife?”
Goberban said Candace had experienced a wonderful pregnancy.
“She never got sick and was happy,” he said, adding they were both excited over the birth of their first child, whose name was to be Nevin.
The excitement lasted the entire nine months of the pregnancy and even past the predicted due date of November 24. Excitement was replaced by another darker feeling on Wednesday.
“Everything started Tuesday evening. Candace went to the Aranguez Health Centre. They gave her a letter and sent her to the hospital.
“She went to the hospital. They did blood tests and said they were keeping her and said they would most likely induce labour on Tuesday night.”
Goberban said he left and went home.
“Wednesday morning she called and said they didn’t induce labour and she was still on the ward. She told me when they came and burst the water bag to speed up the process.”
Goberban went to the hospital during visiting hours on Wednesday, from 4 pm to 6 pm.
“At 6.10 pm they took her to the labour ward. I had already left. I came back and waited outside the ward.”
At 7 pm Goberban checked with nurses. He was told the baby had not yet come. He checked again at 8 pm and was given the same response.
“After 9 pm, they said sit down and wait and that someone would come talk to me. I saw a lot of frantic running around,” Goberban said.
“I was seeing the staff running around. With all of that I started crying because I knew it was my wife. I saw them carry my wife on a stretcher. She looked like she was getting fits.
“They called me and said she was bleeding heavily. They said they would have to take out her womb. Blood was coming out of my wife like if you open a pipe.”
Goberban’s last view of his wife was of her lying on a hospital bed with needles all over her body and blood gushing out of her.
“She had no complications before. No sickness. No diabetes. She was normal all nine months.”
This is the fourth maternal death in the past two weeks.
In a statement on the incident, medical chief of staff Dr Karen Sohan said the hospital staff felt grief over the death of the baby and young mother.