Pregnant Woman With COVID-19 Dies After Three Hospitals Claim "We Cannot Treat Pregnant Women" With the Virus

The news of becoming parents is the best thing that a couple can ever receive but the miracle of life can be an eventful experience. 32-year-old Dön Kılınç was nine months pregnant when she, unfortunately, caught the coronavirus in Istanbul, Turkey

Dön, a teacher by profession was quarantined at home when she went into labor and pleaded with her husband to take her to the hospital as the pain had become uncontrollable. Ramazan Kılınç took his wife to the Pendik Medipol Hospital where she had been treated during her pregnancy but this time they didn't seem very welcoming.

On November 3, when Ramazan rushed his wife to the hospital and told them that she was in labor, he also informed them that she was infected with the virus. This revelation resulted in the hospital turning the pregnant woman away, stating they were not accepting COVID patients.

“When I said that my wife had Covid-19, they did not even let us in. So I called the hospital director," revealed Ramazan. "He told me, ‘we don't accept patients with Covid-19 to protect the other patients inside. We are not a pandemic hospital.' When I insisted, he replied, ‘you can come back when your spouse's Covid-19 test is negative.' Meanwhile, my wife was writhing in pain.”

The Gazete Duvar reported Ramazan saying that the hospital literally "shut their door in our faces, even though we had been their patients." The desperate man then took his wife to two more hospitals, but there too, they got the same treatment. "We went to Marmara Training and Research Hospital. However, here, too, 'We cannot treat pregnant women with Covid. There is a quota the state gives us for treatment. 'We cannot exceed this quota,' they sent us home," Ramazan revealed.

Dön was writhing in pain when her husband called up Medipol Hospital expecting them to consider her situation but they, too, refused to treat her, saying, "If your spouse's test is negative, come. Or we cannot accept it." Fortunately, one private hospital understood the desperate couple's circumstances and once they reached there, the medics immediately rushed her to the operation theater. However, it was too late.

According to The Sun, Dön's condition was too critical and she couldn't be saved, but the baby survived. Ramazan disclosed that the doctors asked him what made him so late to bring his wife to the hospital. If he had been anymore late, "we would have lost the baby too." The heartbroken husband believes that if the hospitals he visited wanted, they could've saved the mother of his child as well. "If they wanted to, they could have operated my wife here as well. Is a person's life this cheap?" he asked.

Now the new father is determined to sue the hospitals for their atrocious behavior. He said, “My wife worked as a teacher in İdil district of Şırnak for 3 and a half years. I'm sure she wouldn't have experienced this much pain if she got sick there. We lost a woman who devoted her life to children and education for years. This state lost a teacher, a child his mother ... They let us down. "

When the Pendik Medipol Hospital was contacted for a statement, they said the claims of the distressed husband were absolutely "unreal, defamatory and misleading the public". They further stated that the hospital worked according to the "regulations and instructions made by the extraordinary efforts of our Presidency and our Ministry of Health in combating the Covid-19 epidemic, which is effective in the whole world and in our country. Until today, none of our patients have been turned from the door, and maximum attention and sensitivity have been shown in their treatment and care," reported Gazete Duvar.

References:

https://www.gazeteduvar.com.tr/ozel-hastane-kovidli-hamile-bakmiyoruz-dedi-anne-oldu-haber-1505973

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/13369959/pregnant-woman-turkey-covid-19-coronavirus-hospital-dead/