A post went viral recently on Facebook about an incident at National University Hospital (NUH) involving a pregnant woman not receiving care and attention fast enough. The post was shared by a woman who happened to be in the Emergency Department (EMD) at the same time – she had recorded a video of the incident and shared it on her Facebook page.
In a nutshell, the woman, Preet Sandhu, wrote that she saw that an agitated man was apparently trying to get the attention of a male nurse at the NUH EMD because his wife was in labour. Ms Sandhu recounted seeing the pregnant lady in a wheelchair, her face contorted in extreme pain.
Apparently, the male nurse and his female colleague were slow to respond and only leapt into action after the lady started to ask the pregnant woman if she was ok and when a phone was pulled out by Ms Sandhu. She had described the male nurse as being ‘rude/arrogant’ who had a ‘don’t care attitude’. According to Preet, the incident lasted about 15 to 16 minutes.
The post was shared by Birth Doula Dil My and promptly went viral. However, the original post has since been removed, apparently per the request of the pregnant woman (now mother) who did not give permission for a video of her to be shared.
The birth doula followed up with another post to educate the public on the stages of labour, indirectly chiding the original poster for misunderstanding the stage of labour the woman was in, noting that she was in the early stage still and not ready to push. So the male nurse not immediately jumping into action as not actually an issue.
From NUH, they have issued a statement on their Facebook page saying that they’ve looked into the incident and found that the woman was admitted into a delivery suite approximately 4 minutes from the time she entered the EMD.
They even said, “We acknowledge that our staff could have shown more empathy and have since reached out to the patient and her husband to apologise for their experience.”
Many netizens, however, were supportive of NUH, saying they needn’t apologise since they did nothing wrong and in fact performed their duty admirably.
Many even shared their own experiences with that specific male nurse who they all agreed was patient, kind, and friendly.
The woman who made the original post, Preet Sandhu, maintains her account of events, calling NUH’s version of the incident ‘fake news’.
