INTOUCH JUNE 2014
'The whole hospital was involved' By Leslie Shepherd
They say it takes a village to raise a child, and it took nearly that many people recently to bring one child into the world under life-threatening conditions at St. Michael’s Hospital. In fact, it took four ob-gyns, one neonatologist, two pediatricians, two anesthesiologists, two hematologists, a radiologist and an interventional radiologist, a perfusionist, a trauma surgeon, a vascular surgeon, a urologist, a social worker, an ethicist, a chaplain, perioperative support assistants, unit service workers and respiratory therapists working together in two operating rooms, as well as nurses, clinical managers and educators in the OR, ICU, antepartum ward, postpartum ward, labour and delivery and the NICU, and the hospital’s expertise in blood management. Emerlinda Wania was pregnant with her fourth child when she developed a condition known as placenta percreta, where the placenta grows through the uterus, generally through a previous C-section scar, and can invade other organs such as the bladder. She started having some light vaginal bleeding and her water broke at 27 weeks into her pregnancy. She needed another C-section to deliver the baby, a hysterectomy to remove her uterus and additional surgery to repair her bladder and any other damage. Dr. Andrea Lausman, a specialist in high-risk pregnancies, said she was worried Wania would start bleeding heavily and require emergency surgery, so she assembled a team of two dozen health care specialists to prepare as if it Printed on 100 per cent recycled paper
Emerlinda Wania holds her baby Precious in the NICU. (Photos by Yuri Markarov, Medical Media Centre)
were an elective procedure. “I felt like we used all of the resources of our hospital to give her truly multidisciplinary care,” said Dr. Lausman. Adding to the complexity of the case was the fact that Wania is a Jehovah’s Witness and her religion forbids blood transfusions. The surgeries she was about
to undergo carry a high risk of serious bleeding. Doctors knew they could save her life and the baby’s if they could give her blood transfusions, but without that capacity, “we were very concerned she would die,” Dr. Lausman said. Well before the scheduled surgery date, Continued on page 2 JUNE 2014 | IN TOUCH | 1