By FARRAH JOHNSON
Tribune Staff Reporter
fjohnson@tribunemedia.net
A WOMAN is looking for answers after her daughter, who tested positive for COVID-19, died in Princess Margaret Hospital shortly after giving birth.
Shakinah Dean, 20, was admitted to PMH on August 16 after she began experiencing shortness of breath and vomiting blood. Ms Dean, who was nine months pregnant at the time, tested positive for COVID-19 three days later. After giving birth to a baby boy on August 20, the young mother remained at the hospital where she died less than a week later.
Yesterday, Shakinah’s mother, Karen Dean, told The Tribune she is seeking closure concerning the untimely death of her daughter which she believes is due in time on the ward.
“I’m looking for answers and I want to know that something has been done... in some way or form as regards... my child,” she said.
Ms Dean, who described her daughter as “happy and full of life,” said the young mother had an unpleasant experience during her ten day stay at PMH. She claims staff at the hospital did not give her daughter enough attention, given her condition.
“On several occasions she knocked on the wall to get the nurse’s attention,” she claimed. “She was asking for water at one point and she said the nurse came to her and asked her if that’s what you call me for and left and didn’t bring the water back right away.”
She added: “Because Shakinah had a breathing issue, she had oxygen and she had a hard time walking to the bathroom which was far from her bed. She would have a breathing attack on her way to the bathroom and she would have to sit and try catch herself in the bathroom before she attempt to go back to the bed. . . Bear in mind she just had a child a couple days prior.”
Ms Dean said she has not heard from any health officials since Shakinah’s death last week. She also said the family has not been informed of her daughter’s official cause of death as yet.
She explained her daughter wanted to be transferred to the COVID-19 medical facility on Blake Road, but was transferred to another ward in PMH instead.
Ms Dean claimed Shakinah had a “horrible experience” in that ward.
“The morning before she died when I spoke with her via video call, she said she was calling the nurse because she was cold and wanted them to turn the air-condition down, but the nurse never came.
“She told me ‘God forbid if something happens to me, (baby) Sha’kyre is all yours.’ I told her she had to speak with life and hope. I told her she had to pray for God to bring her out of there so she could come home, but she said ‘Mummy you have no idea how I feel’ and later that morning she died. She was showing no signs the day prior, but early that morning when I spoke to her, she seemed as if she was giving up because she couldn’t get (any) help. . .”
Ms Dean claimed that at one point during her daughter’s hospital stay, her son went to PMH with juice and water, but no one ever came out to retrieve the items for Shakinah. She said her son left after waiting for two hours.
Yesterday Catherine Weech, the managing director of the Public Hospitals Authority (PHA), said the organisation is currently investigating the matter.
When asked to respond to the allegations made against some hospital staff, she said: “That doesn’t sound like something that we would do. I don’t know the details, but certainly we will look into it and produce a report. But that just doesn’t sound like something we would do to our patients.”
Meanwhile, Ms Dean said her family has not been given a timeline as to when they will receive more information on the circumstances surrounding Shakinah’s death.
“No one has contacted me as yet in reference to it and I’m going to try and get funeral arrangements done because she’s still in the morgue,” she said.
“I haven’t gotten a death certificate or nothing and I want to see the COVID results, but no one has reached out to me as yet. I’m going to deal with that this week.”
Despite the sudden loss, Ms Dean said she chooses to reflect on the loving memory of her daughter.
“Shakinah was always joyful and had a smile that would light up a room.
“She had an aura about her where if you came in contact with her, you had to love her. That was just who she was.”
Comments
Cobalt 3 years, 7 months ago
This is an awful story! Very very sad! This young lady was obviously in distress and the nurses disregarded their duties and allowed her to die without rendering intervention. This is gross negligence. It sounds like she was experiencing acute respiratory failure. Nurses should have assessed her oxygen saturations and place her on a non- rebreather mask or a Venti mask. Even a high-flow nasal cannula or a continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machine would have helped. They should have conducted an Arterial Blood Gas to determine if she was experiencing Respiratory Acidosis. She needed a stat EKG, a Metabolic panel and a Hemogram panel drawn immediatley. What the devil are those nurses doing at PMH??? Wow! This is negligence, causation, harm, foreseeability, and dereliction of duty! All the necessary components needed for a lawsuit.
DDK 3 years, 7 months ago
How terribly sad and tragic. IF the comments on the treatment of this poor patient are accurate, there would appear to be elements of criminality in the case, at the very least uncaring and inhumane action by the medical staff. Is it likely any results will come out of an "investigation"?
joeblow 3 years, 7 months ago
While a sad event, why does the Tribune print these one sided stories? I live my life believing every story has two sides and it is wrong to form conclusions without hearing both sides!
Why seek "closure" by going to a newspaper that cannot give any additional information?
Seems more reasonable to get a lawyer, sit down with the doctors involved and wait for an autopsy!
Cobalt 3 years, 7 months ago
This is exactly why I don’t “bat an eye” when I see these nurses and doctors outside of PMH protesting for more money. Many of them are heartless and lack compassion. If I had my way, most of them would be fired and replaced with qualified foreigners. Bahamians have become a fat, lazy, careless culture who are under the misapprehension that life owes them something. The field of nursing requires a selfless, compassionate, self-sacrificing personality, combined with patience and love for others. It should be a noble profession. But unfortunately, Bahamians culturally give horrible customer service anyway! Can you imagine having one of them responsible for your care when you are incapacitated??? God help you.
TalRussell 3 years, 7 months ago
Might be as simple as not much may have changed under the Sun since the Eighteenth century? Not like we don't hear stories about family members have brought their own bedsheets from home to change the soiled linens left unchanged on the patient's bed?
Our comrade health officials might want to reference back to better understand the Puerperal Fever aka Black Death of Childbirth back in the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries. Nod Once for Yeah might be related to something as simple the washing of hands, and sterilisation before and after childbirth, Twice for No?
Jim 3 years, 7 months ago
Actually, the girl's husband is the next of kin and not her mother. He will get autopsy reports, ect., otherwise the hospital for would be violating privacy rules. Too sad that she contacted the virus while pregnant and about to give birth, otherwuse sounds like she was extremely healthy.
bogart 3 years, 7 months ago
Very sad. In such a very sad and alarming story of a young woman having a baby and unexpectedl6 passed away and father of the baby and the father of the young mother was seems not interviewed by writer or journalist or comments cited in the story. These continuous stories always only have anguished mothers interviewed by writers journalists and gains public sympathy and almost never mentions any father and baby father being interviewed and or even mentioned too anguished to comment. All children in this country have mothers and fathers who biologically making them and responsibilities. Totally interviewing and comments only referring to mothers and not referring to fathers by writers journalists is unfair.
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