Fraser Health has apologized to the Indo-Canadian woman forced to give birth in Surrey Memorial Hospital lobby after being turned away several times by hospital staff. “We are sorry to hear about this person’s experience at Surrey Memorial Hospital. We are committed to providing safe and timely patient care to each person who presents to one of our hospitals,” said Nick Eagland, communication consultant for FHA public affairs.

SURREY – Fraser Health has apologized to the Indo-Canadian woman forced to give birth in Surrey Memorial Hospital lobby after being turned away several times by hospital staff.

City News reported this week that Pawandeep Samra gave birth in the lobby of SMH on Boxing Day after being sent home three times that same day while in labour. 

“Sorry, for that question, we can’t discuss individual patient cases due to confidentiality,” Nick Eagland, communication consultant for FHA public affairs replied.

 “We are sorry to hear about this person’s experience at Surrey Memorial Hospital. We are committed to providing safe and timely patient care to each person who presents to one of our hospitals,” he said in an email to the Surrey Now-Leader on Thursday.

Dr. Darren Lazare, Fraser Health Authority’s program medical director and regional department head for its mother, infant, child, youth program, said Thursday while he can’t speak specifically to Samra’s experience, he offered “an apology to the patient and to her family on behalf of Fraser Health,” though he wasn’t personally involved in the situation, reported Surrey Now-Leader newspaper.

Asked under what circumstances a pregnant woman would be sent home from hospital three times in one day prior to her giving birth there on the fourth visit, Lazare replied in terms of the process for assessing patients in labour, a woman might come in with painful contractions, could be bleeding or breaking her water.

“She would either call, at which there is a specialized nurse at the end of the phone who works in the family birthing unit at Surrey or any one of the hospitals in Fraser Health that does maternity care, she might come in, in which case she will be seen by one of those nurses,” he explained, “and so what happens at that point is they’re assessed and there’s an assessment done in terms of her contractions, in terms of what’s going on with her labour, and then that patient is seen by somebody whether it’s a family doctor, obstetrician or midwife, and they complete the assessment, review the pregnancy history and would ascertain in most cases whether the membranes or the water has broken, how strong the contractions are, how frequently they are coming.”

Asked if these protocols were followed in this case, Lazare said the documentation needs to be reviewed. Lazare said Fraser Health has contacted Samra “and obviously we’re taking this very seriously and we want to follow up with her and discuss her experience, and so that is happening.”

Following Samra’s story, more new mothers are speaking out about traumatic labour, delivery in Fraser Health. Two more new moms have come forward saying the story has brought back painful memories of their own deliveries.

Ramandeep Brar says seeing the story reminded her of what happened to her in October of last year, reported CityNews.

“It all came fresh to me again. I felt for the woman, what she underwent in this situation and how she was treated. It should not be happening.”

Like Brar, Serina Sandhu was also reminded of what she went through when giving birth to her daughter last year when she watched Samra’s story.

“When that lady was speaking about her story and crying. I felt that pain, I get it, I understood,” she says.

“It just brought back so many memories, and memories that I didn’t speak about. I was just so upset about what happened, confused about what happened, and not sure I was overreacting about it. So I didn’t want to speak about it.”