My Baby Died After NUH Left My Pregnant Wife Bleeding for 2 Hrs

A man claimed that his unborn child has died because of NUH’s lapses. He demands answers from NUH, MOH and Ong Ye Kung.

Last week, his wife was bathing when she started “bleeding profusely from the birth canal”. She was 36 weeks pregnant. The man called 995 immediately and she was sent to NUH A&E at around 10.30pm.

At 10.38pm, he got a SMS telling him that he will receive patient updates on his phone. However, there were no updates for 2 hours.

“The nurse came and only set up the monitoring device to check on my wife vital signs and left. She was left there bleeding profusely and left unattended for an estimated time of 2 hours. No doctors and nurses came to check and attend to my wife for 2 hours and no one informed her that there is no bed in the maternity ward.”

After 2 hours, NUH sent his wife to the maternity ward. He then received an update saying that she has been attended to by a doctor. Unfortunately, it was too late. Their baby’s heart was no longer beating.

“After checking on my wife and the baby, the doctors told my wife that the baby heart structure was there but there was no heartbeat and hence he has passed away.”

The man believed his child may still be alive if NUH treated his wife quickly. How can they leave a bleeding, pregnant woman waiting for 2 hours?

“Isn’t losing excessive blood a life threatening situation to a person who is not pregnant, let alone a pregnant lady? This is a really unfortunate incident and I can’t stop thinking could my baby be saved if only we were attended to promptly. I just want to be sure it doesn’t happen to anyone else.”

We offer our deepest condolences to the family for their loss. What was NUH doing? How will MOH and Ong Ye Kung answer to this?