No. It is not Marilyn Monroe. And it is certainly not your M&M sweets (although some might argue that the high sugar content will cause harm). No, I am not talking about multiple myeloma either.
Its maternal mortality.
Just mention this term among your colleague, it will certainly bring chills to their spine. Some had nightmares of going through the painstaking process of being interrogated. Months of sleepless nights, loss of appetites, anhedonia, and suffers in term of performance at work. Some even loss their money and worse case scenario, losing jobs.
I want to share a personal experience of my recent encounter with MM:
Mdm Z was a 24 years old expecting mother. She enjoys good health previously. She had a loving husband, and a caring family. This was her first pregnancy, and she had lots of hope for it. The first trimester of pregnancy passed through like a breeze.
During her second trimester, she had fever for a week. To cut short the stories, she was found to have infective endocarditis of the native valve. She was told of the problem and treatment commenced. As she was pregnant, many drugs were contraindicated, so the choice of antibiotics were limited. After about a week, she developed heart failure, probably because the infections cause valvular insufficiency. However, as of many Malaysian, they have predominating mindsets that alternative medicines works, and refused the trial-proven therapy. So the family brought a Shaman at midnight to her cubicle (without our prior consent), chanting spells for 2 hours, spraying water all over (nevertheless, causing massive rain inside ward and disturbed the other patients). You know what, the fetus died the next day!
Couple of days later, she delivered. Treatment was continued (and many 'I told you so, yet you don't want to listen'). Finally she was discharged well after weeks of antibiotics and planned for operative management in near future. Just a week after discharge, patient condition deteriorated at home yet family refused to bring her to hospital. When we rang up to follow up her condition, that's when we knew she had met her maker.
Who's at fault?
Sooner or later, there will be inquiries regarding this maternal mortality case. We have to attend countless of meeting, fired with many questions and waste many time in between.
MM also created a culture of defensive medicine where managing team will priorities the non-emergent case over others to save themselves from this MM inquiries hassle. What do you think?
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