Maternal deaths at GPHC linked to referrals from private hospitals – Rambarran

While there has been a slight increase in maternal deaths recorded at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) for the year thus far, majority of the cases involved patients referred from private hospitals in critical conditions.

Chief Executive Officer of GPHC, Robbie Rambarran told reporters on Wednesday that the hospital recorded nine deaths as compared to eight in 2024.

“The majority of the patients we had that died came from private hospitals. Sometimes they send them to us and there is nothing different we can do for them. There are cases where they sent patients that are already intubated, and there is nothing different we can do,” Rambarran explained at the sidelines of an event at the Ministry of Health.

And, while in some instances, patients are transferred due to financial constraints, Rambarran believes that some of the private hospitals also refer patients to avoid having the deaths reflected in their own statistics.

“I honestly believe that private hospitals like doing this because the deaths don’t fall under their numbers, it comes under ours,” Rambarran said.

Rambarran noted that this trend has been raised with the Minister of Health and at the GPHC board level. He said the hospital plans to review the criteria that determine how maternal deaths are attributed to GPHC.

Asked about the maternal complications that lead to the deaths, Rambarran said most were indirect causes. He highlighted that among the cases were one involving poison ingestion and another due to a head injury.

Rambarran also revealed that GPHC has forwarded some of the maternal death cases to the Medical Council for further review.

“There are a lot of challenges, but we plan to have discussions with the private hospitals. That is why I took the decision to forward some of these reviews to the Medical Council, because some of them really need some sort of intervention, and that is what we are working towards,” Rambarran stated.

He added that, there has been an increase of neonatal referrals to the hospital as well as an increase in admissions and deliveries. When compared to referrals and deaths, Rambarran said the percentage is small.