Woman in northern Manitoba loses baby after waiting hours for medevac flight
CTV
When a woman in northern Manitoba suffered a serious pregnancy complication, she was left waiting hours for a medevac flight when quick medical intervention could have saved her baby's life.
When a woman in northern Manitoba suffered a serious pregnancy complication, she was left waiting hours for a medevac flight when quick medical intervention could have saved her baby's life.
"My boyfriend [saw] his leg come out," Adrienne Menow told CTVNews. "I didn't feel like I mattered."
Menow is sounding the alarm about a lack of emergency medical resources in Indigenous communities like Norway House Cree Nation. With her baby in breech, Menow needed immediate help, but spent hours in labour in a room at the Norway House hospital until a flight could take her north to a better-equipped facility in the city of Thompson, Man.
When she finally arrived at the hospital there, she knew that the son she had named Jasper wouldn't survive.
"[The] baby was born within four minutes when I got to the hospital," Menow said. "But he was born stillborn."
In northern First Nations, where emergency responses can take hours instead of minutes, people have long called for better medical services and facilities.
Not far away in Pimicikamak Cree Nation, a nursing station that is supposed to have 12 primary care nurses each day has only had an average of seven nurses on duty since last summer, according to information obtained by CTV News.