Six months pregnant, a general worker of the Victoria Hospital, Candos, 29 years old, gave birth prematurely on Wednesday morning of December 14 without medical assistance. She called 115, but there was no ambulance from the Emergency Medical Service (SAMU) to come to her home in the Pointe aux Sables area. It was her neighbor who helped her deliver her child. She then called the police, who transported her to the hospital where the baby was found dead.
In a statement made at the police station in Pointe aux Sables, a police inspector related the circumstances of this delivery by this thirty-year-old woman. The latter was alone at home around 8:45 am, Wednesday, December 14 when she began to have contractions. She sought help from a neighbor. The woman, who arrived at her home, called for an ambulance from the EMS, but was told that no ambulance is available and was not even advised how to go about it.
It was 10:30 a.m. when she felt her baby coming. Half an hour later, she made a request for police assistance. A police vehicle arrived and she was taken to the Dr. A.G. Jeetoo Hospital, Port-Louis, with the help of the police. Jeetoo, Port-Louis with her baby, who was still in the amniotic fluid sac. She was admitted to the ward and a doctor had to pronounce her baby dead. The body was later transferred to the morgue of this hospital for an autopsy. The autopsy, performed by Dr. Maxwell Monvoisin, Principal Police Medical Officer, attributed the death to a ‘fresh still born’, meaning that the baby was alive in the womb but died during delivery. Blood samples were sent to the Forensic Science Laboratory in Reduit for analysis.
