A Cameroonian hospital is currently being probed for allegedly not accommodating a pregnant woman who was about to give birth to twins. The facility's negligence was supposedly the reason why the mother and her babies died.
At a media conference earlier this week, Cameroonian health minister Andre Mama Fouda told CRTV that the hospital in Douala City did not neglect the woman. However, authorities are still unsure about what caused her death.
According to Fouda's press statement via CNN, Monique Koumate was consulted by a doctor at public health facility last Friday. The next morning, she was taken by family members to the Nylon District Hospital since they all agreed to have the fetuses "removed." Accommodating health personnel told the group that the hospital does not perform such procedure.
Koumate's family then took her to the Douala La Quintinie Hospital. Two hospital employees directed them to the maternity office, but they noticed that Koumate was no longer breathing. The family was asked to take her body to the mortuary, but they stormed back to the maternity asking personnel to deliver the twins.
Details of the incident started to get inconsistent from that point on. However, a woman, who was allegedly Koumate's relative, was captured on video trying to operate on the corpse in a desperate attempt to save the babies.
She had done so out in the open and in front of the mortuary. This led oblivious onlookers to believe the hospital did not accommodate the pregnant woman and allowed her to die outside the facility.
News of what happened quickly spread across the community. People flocked outside La Quintinie on Sunday to badger the hospital for an explanation. Meanwhile, Koumate's story has gone viral all over the world, leading the international health community to question the country's healthcare system.
The official United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund website indicated that Cameroon has one of the most alarming mortality rates in the world. Approximately 670 out of every 100,000 women die during childbirth in the West African country.
