Instead of a celebration to welcome the birth of baby Kaden, a Cocorite family last night was preparing a wake for his mother.
Kellane Hinds, 33, the daughter of People’s National Movement operations officer Irene Hinds, died at the Port-of-Spain General Hospital after failing to regain consciousness following a scheduled Caesarean Section.
But distraught relatives are now demanding answers as to how a healthy, vibrant woman who was also the mother of a seven-year-old girl died so suddenly. They said Hinds had a full term and normal pregnancy and was excited about giving birth.
At her home at Dunlop Drive, Cocorite, yesterday, Hinds' mother, Irene, openly wept as scores of friends, including PNMites, filled her home to pay their respects to a woman who was well loved and known in the community.
Hinds would have celebrated her 34th birthday next month and was expected to get married next year.
Irene, who described her only child as full of life, said her daughter was supposed to undergo the C-section around 8 am on Monday but the operation was not performed until around 1.30 pm. When she went to visit her daughter after the surgery, Hinds said she immediately knew something was amiss.
“When I went to visit my daughter she was coughing blood. I asked the nurse but she told me that was normal,” Irene recounted, struggling to hold back tears.
She said she then went to visit her grandson, who was placed on the first floor of the maternity department.
“I went downstairs to see about the baby... he is nine pounds-plus... and then when I went back up her friends were there with her. They said the doctors told them to go outside because they (the doctors) needed to see about my daughter.
“And then they came to explain to me that my daughter had to go to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU),” Irene recounted.
She said sometime on Monday afternoon doctors told her her daughter had fluid in her lungs and also “probably clot blood.
“On Monday night the heart gave up and they resuscitate her and then the heart gave up again and then they resuscitated her again and then she died,” Irene said.
Hinds passed away shortly after 7 pm.
On whether the hospital could have done more to save her daughter’s life, Irene said there were too many unanswered questions, adding this reflected a wider problem of too many deaths arising out of C-sections.
She said her daughter's operation was scheduled because she had the same surgery for her daughter Kimora.
“She had to go in the hospital for 8 on Sunday and the C-section was 6 am on Monday and by 1.20 pm they didn’t do it yet and they had my daughter waiting in the corridor... I don’t feel that is a normal thing,” Irene added.
But Irene is not asking for justice, only closure and a better health system.
“I am not asking for anything. My daughter died... she has two children... a girl and a baby boy... and now I have to take care of them.
“Every time I watch news somebody who had a C-section... and the baby get cut or the mother died... I just cannot be satisfied. I just cannot understand the urgency in having a C-section.
“I cannot see how the nurse could tell me that my daughter coughing blood in a cup is normal.”
Hugging her granddaughter, she said the child was happy her mother was with God.
“We told her that God wanted her mummy and that is the reason why he took her. She knows her mummy loves her, so she is doing well for now,” Irene said.
Hinds is expected to be laid to rest on Friday.
Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh, who visited the family yesterday, said he was looking at setting up a special unit to deal specifically with maternal and infant mortality.
In expressing his condolences, Deyalsingh said he could not make any pronouncements, including whether hospital staff was culpable, as he was awaiting a final report which was due within 48 hours.
He said once the final report was delivered the ministry would then conduct its own investigation, ensuring that international guidelines were followed.