According to well placed sources, Dr. Smit, a gynecologist at the St. Maarten Medical Center abandoned a patient that he was performing a caesarean operation on Sunday morning. Medical personnel at the institution said that the patient was in labor when she was admitted to the medical institution. The patient they said is a patient of Dr. Randal Friday, but somehow Dr. Friday could not be reached immediately and the patient and baby were in trouble. The source said Dr. Smit then decided to examine the patient and when he realized that the patient needed to have an emergency C-Section operation he decided to go ahead and perform the operation.
SMN News learnt that while the operation was in progress Dr. Randal Friday showed up at the hospital and went to the operation room to see what was happening. "When Dr. Smit saw Dr. Friday, he got into some rage and stormed out of the operation room leaving the patient to bleed profusely. Dr. Smit used his bloody gloves to open all the doors leaving a blood trail behind him. Besides that, Dr. Smit did not tell Dr. Friday he was abandoning the patient at such a critical moment. The baby was removed but the placenta was still attached and the mother had a scar on her uterus all of which were bleeding profusely. Dr. Smit did not tell Dr. Friday that he was leaving neither did he update Dr. Friday on the patient's condition. Dr. Friday had to rush and prepare himself to save the patient's life. At the time, the patient was abandoned by Dr. Smit she was still under anesthesia, her belly was wide open and she was bleeding," the source said.
Questions are now being raised by several other medical personnel at the institution about Dr. Smit's credibility and if he should be allowed to continue practicing medicine on St. Maarten. Some doctors at the institution have said that Sunday's incident is enough to revoke Dr. Smit's medical license.
The incident caused medical personnel in the operating rooms to take a unanimous decision not to work with Dr. Smit again until proper measures are taken against him. Sources say that Dr. George Scot has issued a gag order on all medical personnel preventing them from speaking about the incident. Some said that Dr. Scot has threatened to fire them if they do not continue to work with Dr. Smit.
It should be noted that Dr. Smit was involved in an incident earlier this year where he hit nurse Sheryl .
SMN News learnt that medical personnel from the institution already informed the Minister of Health on the situation and requested that an investigation be conducted by his Ministry.
In an invited comment, Minister of Health Cornelius de Weever said that the Inspectorate will be informed about the incident and they will conduct an investigation.
