Life of woman was impossible to spare, says hospital

Photo: Erik Prozes / Postimees

In light of controversial information spread publicly regarding a recent tragic incident at West-Tallinn Central Hospital (LTKH) Pelgulinn obstetrical department, the hospital hereby underlines that the January 27th case of death of mother with child is unrelated to a young man committing suicide the selfsame day. Also, the hospital stresses the small likelihood of the woman's life having possibly been spared. 

In the morning of January 27th a pregnant woman had recourse to the Pelgulinn clinic complaining of pain in her shoulder. Having detected nothing life threatening, and as the woman asked to go home as alleged by LTKH, she was allowed to do so. In a couple of hours, the woman died at North-Tallinn Regional Hospital having been taken there by an ambulance.

As autopsy found, the woman had a congenial anomaly of blood vessels near spleen. It is a rare syndrome which can mostly only be diagnosed after death, wherefore as assessed by doctors at LTKH the woman’s life could not have been spared.

LTKH communication specialist Liisa Suba said the woman was n her 29th week of pregnancy. «At least for the moment, before the final results of the autopsy are out, it is impossible to say if the life of the child could have been spared,» said Ms Suba, adding that the option exists theoretically while in practice no one knows what could have been had they acted otherwise.  

In the evening of the same day, January 27th, a young man jumped out the window of a 5th floor family ward who had just become father to his second child in the morning. It happened when his wife had gone to the toilet.

Mistakenly, the suicide has been linked to the death of expectant mother and child mentioned above. As explained by Ms Suba, the incidents are «in no way related.»

Ms Suba said the man’s relatives have asked for the incident not to be analysed publicly. «We will honour the wish of the people closest to him and hope the media does too,» she said.

«The obstetrics department is shocked at what happened and the atmosphere in the house is far from usual. Many have been the meetings, discussions, analyses on what happened,» admitted Ms Suba.

On top of the above, the parents of a boy handicapped while born and three years of age by now have filed the hospital for €300,000 of reprisal. A sum so large has never been demanded of any hospital.

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Ambulance and hospital disclose no details

Tallinn emergency medical care chief doctor Raul Adlas said the relative of the dead mother and child who wrote the public address forbade the EMC yesterday morning to further comment on the event. «We will honour the wish,» said the doctor.

«Despite the public interest and the widespread coverage in media, we cannot publicly comment without written consent by relatives of the dead as the hospital has no right to publish patient’s health data,» added LTKH communication specialist Liisa Suba.