The Georgetown Public Hospital (GPHC) has recorded nine maternal deaths so far for this year, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Robbie Rambarran disclosed today. However, he has expressed concern about a worrying trend of high risk maternal patients being transferred to Georgetown Hospital from private hospitals when it is too late.
Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the launch of the Qatar Red Crescent Society Health Mission at the Ministry of Health today, Rambarran said the nine cases of maternal mortality represent an increase in maternal deaths when compared to 2024. In 2024, a total of eight maternal deaths were recorded.
Rambarran said a large percentage of the maternal patients who died, arrived at GPHC in a critical state.
“From January to now, if I recall correctly, we had about nine deaths, it is an increase from last year – eight. The thing is we had more referrals, a lot more referrals and admissions as well. A lot of those patients that died came from other hospitals, were never under our care and they were referred to us. They were referred in some critical state,” he said.
Rambarran said the majority of the reviews have been completed, and he will soon sit down with the hospital’s medical team to discuss the reasons behind those deaths. The CEO said he will be submitting a number of those cases to the Guyana Medical Council.
“There are a lot of challenges, there are a lot of challenges but we plan to have some discussions with the private hospitals and that is why I have took the decision to forward some of these reviews to the medical council because some of them would really need some sort of intervention. The majority of the patients that we have that died, so far, came from private hospitals,” Rambarran said.
It is suspected that some private hospitals have been transferring their critical patients to the Georgetown Hospital.
The Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation said it continues to make significant improvements in the area of Maternal and Neonatal Care as it still records fewer deaths.
Maternal deaths are either direct, or indirect meaning that the patient did not die as a result of obstetric complications during pregnancy, childbirth or the postpartum period, but rather died as a result of poisoning, accident, or pre-existing conditions or diseases.
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