LETTER: Pregnant Worker Who Did COVID Test Not Pleased With Hospital
April 21, 2020Dear EDITOR,
I am a call center worker employed to Alorica in Portmore, St. Catherine.
I last went to work on the 9th of this month because of the sudden spread of the Coronavirus at my workplace, and because of my maternity leave.
I have been home-quarantined for 11 days now.
I have tested for COVID-19, but I am still waiting for the results.
Seeing that my due date is near, I started noticing signs of labour.
The health department ambulance came for me at my home; they took more than 2 hours to reach. At that moment, I was having on-and-off cramps and pain.
When the ambulance finally reached May Pen Hospital, a nurse told the midwife that came with me in the ambulance: “We didn’t get any information and we don’t have the facilities to accommodate persons like those.”
Now, I see this as discriminating and outright disrespectful.
After all that, the midwife accompanied me back to the ambulance. I lay down in there for 2 hours and couple minutes, because that same nurse told the midwife they will have to take me to Mandeville Hospital.
While in the ambulance, calls were being made.
Nobody wanted to come and let us know what’s happening – as the midwife explained she was only called to come and pick me up from home to bring me to the hospital.
Moments after that, someone came and said the midwife should bring me back to the maternity ward of the said hospital in May Pen.
I went in and a doctor checked me and explained to me that I’m not quite ready yet to go in active labour, left me in a room locked up to myself – waiting for another hour again for the ambulance to come and bring me back home.
I was so frustrated and hungry, and I couldn’t eat anything because I was advised not to leave the room.
How can a pregnant woman that has no signs of Coronavirus be treated like an animal?
My head really hurts right now. How unfair this is? Why should I leave home to be in this predicament?
I want this to go viral and I need the Prime Minister of Jamaica to see this.
Yours Truly,
Clarendon Resident
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