A Maternity Ward Experience…

In my line of work, you get to witness eye opening events on a daily basis. Sometimes miracles happen but other times misery and helplessness takes over.  One fine day in the gynecology ward of our shabby ill-maintained government hospital I meet this woman, lying half dead on a dirty hospital bed in an under-ventilated overpopulated ward. She came in a state of shock with 20% of blood drained from her body. She had given birth to a 7kg baby at 3am in a private clinic and went into postpartum hemorrhage after which she never stopped bleeding. By 9am she lost consciousness and was rushed to the hospital. There was chaos all around as the doctors quickly got to checking her vitals and assessing her condition. The stench of blood filled my nostrils and made my stomach churn.

The other patients and attendants were stricken with fear as they watched the senior lady doctors bark orders at the juniors and nurses. Her blood was quickly sent to the blood bank for typing. She turned out to be an A negative. However there was no blood available at the moment and whatever there was the hospital was not willing to give it. The woman was administered a haemacel drip to increase her blood pressure which had already dropped to a lethal low. Gauze packs were rapidly placed and replaced between her legs but the blood would not stop. The professor of that ward scolded the juniors on not taking the woman to ICU the moment she arrived. Excuses about incomplete procedures and arrangements were mumbled.  Panic began to settle like a heavy cloud in that dingy 8bed ward as the woman stopped breathing. The blood still had not arrived. It turned out that the woman’s only attendant, her mother in law was an A negative. She however, was unwilling to give blood. The doctors requested her, plead her and then reprimanded her but she was adamant.  During that entire ordeal, she looked around unbothered in a rather bored manner which infuriated doctors even more. The professor even threatened her that she would take in writing from her that she could have saved her daughter in law’s life but she had refused to. But the woman did not appear any more concerned than she already was.

Some watched in pity, the whole scenario. Others whispered in horror of the the helplessness of the doctors and the hopelessness of a mother in law. Another 10% of blood had drained from the woman’s body as she became more and more lifeless. Cardiac massage was continually being performed on her in a desperate attempt to keep her alive. Finally a bag of blood arrived. The nurse clumsily fumbled with a stand to hang the bag from. A student reminded her that the blood was the greater priority upon which she  quickly administered it but to no avail. The woman had left this world. And the moment the mother in law realized that the doctors had given up, she let out a huge scream. She started slapping her face and her chest like a madwoman, screaming out curses at the good-for-nothing doctors who couldn’t do anything to save her beloved daughter. I watched open mouthed as the other attendants dragged her out of the ward and into the corridor where she lay screaming even harder. The doctors walked out in dejection while the nurses draped the dead woman who had hardly seen 25years in this world. The horror and the tragedy of it shook us to the core. The horror was in a life that could have been saved. The tragedy lay in our empty conscience and selfishness. The screaming woman got up and came to the bedside, pulled out the pair of gold earrings from the corpse’s ears and then serenely walked out the door to re continue her tantrum and her cries of woe for the benefit of the men of the family.