A first-time father is seeking to shed light on what he alleges is negligence by staff at University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI) that resulted in his fiancée being in labour for almost 20 hours and their baby being admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) for three weeks.

According to the father, who requested anonymity, he and his fiancée went to the hospital at about 1:00 pm on a Wednesday because she was in “active labour”. He said his fiancée had been stuck at 8cm dilated and needed medication to help her along in the process. However, at about 11:00 pm, the nurse who was supposed to administer the medication reportedly told him that her shift had ended and she would hand over to her colleague.

The father said that throughout the night, medical officials checked on his wife to see if her dilation was progressing, but no one administered the needed medication. He said the following day, a doctor came by at about 8:00 am and questioned why his fiancée had not yet given birth. It was then that he said medical personnel sprang into action and administered the medication.

According to the father, the baby was placed in the NICU due to a lack of oxygen and a bacterial infection.

Attempts over the past two weeks to get a response from the hospital were unsuccessful up to press time.

“The fact that the baby was in there for so long and they didn’t administer the medication, the baby was in distress, and she [the mother] was in distress. When the baby came out, he cried, but he was barely breathing. They had to put him on oxygen and all of that stuff,” the father told the Jamaica Observer.

“The baby’s doing way better because he went to the NICU. Now he’s in the nursery section, but I know that it’s as a result of them not acting on time and doing things according to protocol — that’s what I think really caused this situation because if they had just administered the medication when they were told to or when they were planning to, the baby wouldn’t have been in distress,” the father reasoned, adding that the newborn also had to be sedated.

He shared that, in speaking with a doctor at the hospital regarding the situation, he was told that the baby’s condition was likely due to the prolonged period of labour.

While she could not speak to the specifics of the case, because she was not the doctor who intervened or the doctor on the case, obstetrician, gynaecologist, and family practitioner Dr Shantell Neely James said, generally, babies can be exposed to bacterial infections if the cervix is open for an extended period of time during labour.

“The uterus is normally a very sterile place that is kept walled off and enclosed, so with every dilation it allows more and more things that are potentially in the vagina to have the potential to move up into the uterus… There is a potential risk for there to be some kind of an infection from the cervix being opened and dilated all the way up to eight centimetres for such a prolonged period of time, and that could have exposed the baby, potentially, to infections,” she explained to the Sunday Observer.

First-time parents, the father said he and his fiancée are traumatised by the experience.

“It’s been three weeks that we’ve been back and forth, coming here [to UHWI], checking on the baby, and hearing what they’re doing. It’s just been a stressful, expensive situation that could have been different if they had just operated properly. This experience has been so bad to the point where I don’t feel like I would want to have any more kids, or if I do, I wouldn’t want it to be at UHWI. I wish I could gather every other parent who is sitting up there in the nursery waiting for their kids, the stories that they have, it’s beyond me,” the father told the Sunday Observer.

“It’s still terrifying, honestly, because no parent is prepared to hear all of these things. I think two days after the baby was in there, or two to three days afterwards, when we spoke to the doctor she said — and this is the exact words, she said: ‘This is the sickest baby in this unit, and he is deteriorating.’ Nobody wants to hear that. No parent wants to hear that their baby is deteriorating. It has been extremely stressful,” he said, adding that they are leaning on God for strength.

He further chastised the Government for appealing to citizens to have more babies, arguing that hospitals are not equipped with adequate resources and staff members need better training.

The appeal for Jamaicans to procreate has come from Health and Wellness Minister Dr Christopher Tufton, who stated that Jamaica’s total fertility rate has declined significantly from 4.5 births per female between 1973 and 1975 to 1.9 in 2021, which is below the replacement level of 2.1 required to maintain a stable population.

The first-time father argued that Jamaicans should not be having children under less than ideal circumstances. He called on the Government to address the existing issues before they make an appeal.

“I don’t encourage anybody to be having babies out here. They should take all the extra precautions because even the facility, it doesn’t have a lot of resources. I’m not going to lie, the doctors in the NICU section, they are trying their best, they are doing what they can, but part of it for us was really the labour department where they could have acted with more care and urgency,” said the father.

He argued that “people shouldn’t be having kids in a hospital like this. It’s expensive, and the resources are lacking. Some of the nurses are doing their minimum because they are here to work and not because they really love and enjoy it. If you really love and enjoy something, you wouldn’t see a new mom in a situation like this and think you are going to leave her for the next shift. You don’t do that to people”.

The father acknowledged that while it is hard for the Government to address the attitude of medical professionals, they can address the issue of resources.

“I feel like the doctors and nurses’ morale are built in terms of getting the resources, because if you are working somewhere and you don’t have enough resources to do what you are supposed to do, you are going to be annoyed every day at work. It has to start from having enough resources and having motivated staff as well. The Government doesn’t have any control over the nurses’ attitude or doctors’ attitude towards their job, but I feel like if they at least have resources, then that would kind of put them in a better place,” he reasoned.

The Government maintains that it is committed to improving maternal and newborn care to safeguard women and their babies. Minister of State in the Ministry of Health and Wellness Krystal Lee last month handed over a new neonatal manual and maternal health (emergency obstetrics) protocol at Spanish Town Hospital in St Catherine.

The document’s aim is to raise the standard of care across public health facilities in keeping with Jamaica’s commitment to improve maternal and newborn health outcomes as stated in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

The entrance to University Hospital of the West Indies in St Andrew.