After receiving an interim report into the death of 34-year-old mother Kellane Hinds on Monday, Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh says he will set up a committee to look into the issue of maternal and infant mortality in T&T.
This is the third such committee established within the past five years, while there have been a number of other maternal and infant deaths at local hospitals.
In 2011, a similar committee was set up to investigate and make recommendations following the death of Crystal Boodoo-Ramsumair.
Another committee was set up and recommendations were made after the death of baby Simeon Cottle.
Hinds died one day after undergoing a C-Section to deliver her second child, a son, at the Port-of-Spain General Hospital.
In an interview yesterday, Deyalsingh, who has spent one week as Minister of Health, said he intended to share the report with the Hinds family yesterday.
While he refused to say if there were any red flags in the report, he said his main concern was for the family.
“I have already spoken to the PS (Permanent Secretary) about setting up an ad hoc committee to look at this whole issue of maternal and infant mortality.
“It is an issue that needs to be ventilated and addressed so that we don’t have any other mother or any other baby passing away unnecessarily, unless it is some underlying condition,” Deyalsingh said.
He said it was necessary to ensure there were proper processes and policies in place to lead to a decrease in maternal and infant mortality rates.
Asked why there was a need for yet another committee, Deyalsingh said previous committees were set up for specific instances while this new committee would look at the entire process.
In 2011, the Maternity Services Review Committee, a multi-disciplinary team led by Dr Lackram Bodoe, was established to review existing practices, identify deficiencies, assess causes of maternal and perinatal deaths, and recommend measures for the improvement of access to and quality of services delivered to expectant mothers.
Deyalsingh said the ministry would also rely on reports compiled by previous committees.
T&T, according to Unicef statistics, has higher rates of infant and maternal mortality as compared to the rest of the region, despite economic development.
In 2014, after sitting as a member of a team, commissioned to investigate the death of baby Cottle, neonatologist Petronella Manning-Alleyne said the recommendations made in that report were the same recommendations that had been made “ad nauseam” in the past and vowed never again to sit on another committee investigating the death of a baby.