-Amid strike by staff
BY: Shallon S. Gonlor
NIMBA COUNTY — A pregnant woman identified as Pauline Miapue has died at the Ganta United Methodist Hospital after failing to get medical treatment amid a weeks-old strike by doctors, nurses, and other staff of the health facility in Ganta City, Nimba County.
38-year-old, Pauline Miapue walked into the maternity ward at the Ganta United Methodist Hospital on Wednesday, February 21, 2024, and never walked out.
She died during labor pain, according to family members and parents.
Resident doctors, nurses, and other staff of the Ganta United Methodist Hospital have been in weeklong ‘go slow’ protests, abandoning the facility, dropping their medical tools, and leaving the hospital completely deserted against what they called “unpaid salaries for the past two months.
The incident at the hospital in recent days, where all departments closed their doors, left patients in critical conditions admitted to various medical wards of the hospital crying for rescue, but to no avail.
The Ganta United Methodist Hospital is one of the leading referral hospitals in Nimba, but what appears mismanagement continues to engulf the institution from time immemorial.
The workers complained that since December they are yet to get their salaries, and the management doesn’t care to listen to their plight.
The Out-Patients Department was closed, leaving patients to sleep on benches in frustration without any indication of what to do next.
Since Thursday, February 15, 2024, till press time no adequate treatment nor health delivery service has been provided to current sick patients of the Ganta United Methodist Hospital, as their health complications worsen by the day with the latest death of Pauline Miapue on Wednesday, February 21, 2024.
Family sources hinted to WomenVoices that Pauline was taken to the Ganta United Methodist Hospital on Monday, February 20, 2024, after she got into labor pain and was rushed to the hospital.
Family members said that the deceased died after being abandoned in the surgical room by a doctor who allegedly left in protestation.
According to them, nurses of the hospital earlier took the deceased to the surgical ward after being diagnosed that her baby was dead in her stomach but required an immediate operation to remove the dead child to save her life, which according to the family members the operation was delayed causing Pauline’s death.
The deceased’s father, Jeff V. Miapue, mother, Martha Kollie, brother, D. Francis Mipaue Sr., and sister, Frances Miapue told WomenVoices newsman that several calls placed to the head doctor of the hospital to attend to their late daughter was fruitless resulting to her death over four hours of doctor failing to respond.
“When our mother asked the nurses, they said they were waiting for the big doctor to come look after her. We called the doctor several times on the telephone and she kept saying she was coming and it took over four hours before she could come Pauline was already dead”. they narrated
According to them, all they would hear during phone call with the doctor yet to be named was that they were on a ‘go slow’ for salaries.
Family members and friends are meanwhile calling on relevant authorities to launch an independent investigation into Pauline Miapue’s death.
