Nurse says SERHA recommendations “nothing new”

The health care provider, who spent 10 years working as a nurse in her native homeland before immigrating to greener pastures, shared her thoughts on the issue after SERHA announced it has completed its probe related to Shanique Armstrong.

In a very damning series of allegations carried by national media, the 26-year-old Armstrong detailed how she was left unattended as she gave birth on the floor of the Spanish Town Hospital’s Accident and Emergency (A&E) Department. She was 24 weeks pregnant at the time, while the chances of her baby surviving is said to be extremely low.

A probe into the matter was ordered by the Ministry of Health and Wellness but the findings have not been made public save and except that six recommendations have been proposed and adopted for immediate implementation.

The recommendations are:
• The re-organisation of the operations at the Spanish Town Hospital;
• Have midwives provide direct patient care to pregnant women;
• Discontinue the practice of bedpans for a miscarriage and implement the use of incontinent pads and/or adult diapers;
• Provide grief counselling to women who miscarry;
• Prevent a reoccurrence as that experienced by Ms. Armstrong by having Case Manager, Public Health Nurse  or Social Worker assist pregnant women in the navigation of the health and social care systems; and
• Re-organize the care system for persons suspected with COVID-19 within the hospital to accommodate women who are in early pregnancy.

“The Spanish Town Hospital management committee must now move to ensure that these recommendations are put in place to prevent any similar occurrence as that experienced by Ms. Shanique Armstrong,” stated the Wenthworth Charles-led SERHA board that has direct oversight of 12 national public health facilities.

The SERHA did not indicate in its probe any culpability at the hands of health officials present during Armstrong’s ordeal. However, a preliminary investigation in the immediate aftermath of Armstrong’s story stated “due process was followed” by health officials assigned to the A&E of the hospital at the time.

“The so-called policy that they claim to be implementing is nothing new,” the nurse said in an Old Harbour News exclusive on condition that her identity is not revealed. “From you’re pregnant you must have a midwife who come over and monitor. Unless you know the woman is having a spontaneous abortion and in that case you know you as a regular nurse can’t do anything to the lady. But you see a pregnant lady and you don’t know what’s happening you are going to call someone with experience to monitor the woman. It boils down to the fact that they just don’t care from what I’ve read.”

After perusing SERHA proposals, the registered nurse said: “They need to re-evaluate and revamp their system and until when people are held accountable for the things they do there will be no changes because everybody feels like they are free and they can get away with everything. They must understand that its people life they are dealing with and people’s feelings.”

But the 43-year-old caregiver and mother of three fears that what Armstrong experienced will be repeated.

“Until they are held accountable they are going to continue doing it. And I can tell you they know how to cover themselves,” she said.

The experienced medic said she is flabbergasted by the absence of basic logic and common sense exercised by the hospital staff on duty during Armstrong’s chilling episode.

She said even during the height of the coronavirus pandemic in the US, pregnant mothers are given special attention by midwives, which is standard procedure.

“Every shift we have to get a midwife come up and do a fetal monitor check on the baby. Specialists are summoned if pregnant mothers complain of feeling any kind of discomforts,” she explained in a synopsis of what happens in US hospitals.

“We don’t know nothing about treating pregnant mothers, so we are going to call the people who are trained, because we do not want any baby to die on our hands. So we make sure we call the people who know how to deal with such situations,” she adds.

This she was quick to point out was the modus operandi of health professionals when she was working in Jamaica.

“This is the same thing I use to do when I was at female surgical (ward) at May Pen Hospital and when we get the pregnancies under certain amount of weeks, whenever we have any problems with the baby mothers, the first thing we do is get one of the midwives from over the maternity ward to come over, or we call one of the gynaecologists to check the mother to make sure she is alright,” said the Old Harbour native.

She said Armstrong should pursue legal recourse and hopefully had gotten the names of other patients present at the time to act as witnesses to build a solid case against the hospital and state.

“They need to fix the problem. They either don’t have enough nurses or the nurses are overworked, or the nurses just don’t care anymore,” she said. “I don’t see how you are providing grief counselling after the fact. You suppose to avoid the problem.”

The medical practitioner is also contending that the regional authority’s decision not to make the findings of their probe public, suggests cynicism. 

“We have nothing in our Jamaican hospitals name accountability. And remember its pen and paper write everything. Pen and paper can tear out, dash weh or go missing or can rewrite.

“They are covering themselves. If the procedures were followed then they’re not going to hold anybody accountable because they did what they supposed to do. They ignored the woman and I guess that’s the procedure, and leave her and let her baby die,” she said.