Thu, 25 May 2017 11:07:26 +0000
By Nation Reporter
IT IS sad that women still die during delivery in some hospitals when there are health personnel on call, says Non-Governmental Organisations Co-ordinating Council (NGOCC) Chairperson Sarah Longwe has said.
Ms Longwe said her organisation would take it upon itself to verify the circumstances surrounding the death of a woman who believed to have died after delivery due to gross negligence by some health personnel.
“If indeed it took some time for health staff to attend to a matter of such nature, it is a sad development,” she said.
Ms. Longwe was commenting on the case in which a woman only identified as Babra Chimimba allegedly died after delivery.
It was alleged that some staff at Chilenje Level 1 Hospital delayed to refer the patient to UTH after excessive bleeding following child birth on grounds that they had to consult their superiors before necessary steps could be taken.
However, members of the public alleged that it was not the first time patients had been complaining about the bad attitude of some health personal at the hospital and called on relevant authorities to intervene attention if many deaths were to be avoided.
And one of the relatives of the woman said the death of her sister could have been avoided if the health personnel had treated her situation as a matter of urgency. She narrated that her sister delivered a baby boy on Friday, thereafter, appeared to have developed a complication that needed urgent attention, but that the health personnel allegedly took long to attend to the situation.
“It was heartbreaking to see the condition of my sister when we found her pale due to excessive loss of blood and some staff only came to her aid after realizing that the condition was unstable. By the time she was referred to the University Teaching Hospital around 19 hours, it was too late.
“Justice has to be done because it is the duty of every health personnel to save lives. We tried our best to bring it to the attention of the staff but to no avail,” she said.
