At the Emergency Service of the maternity hospital, a full-term pregnant patient arrives from a neighboring town with suspected placenta previa, bleeding heavily, pale, with a thready pulse and already showing signs of hypotension. The resident is then called to assess the patient together with some interns. After a rapid clinical and obstetric evaluation, he confirms the clinical suspicion and urgently calls the nursing assistants, saying:
— Send the patient upstairs right now, she’s going into shock!
The patient, though close to death, still finds the strength to raise her head, look at the doctor with wide, indignant eyes, and says:
— Yes, doctor, I’m “going into shock” because I’m poor; if I were rich, I’d be “giving birth”!
Daniel Dutra dos Santos
Resident Physician in Obstetrics
