Odisha: Woman denied admission, delivers in drain next to hospital

In yet another shocking incident of medical negligence, a tribal woman in Odisha’s Koraput district delivered in a dry drain near a government hospital which had refused to admit her for want of required documents.

The hospital administration, however, has dismissed the allegation of denial of admission to the woman. However, after the news about the incident spread, the hospital staff shifted the mother and her newborn baby inside the hospital. The baby is being taken care of in the special neonatal care unit. The condition of both the mother and the baby is said to be stable.

The woman had reportedly gone to the gynaecological ward of Saheed Laxman Nayak Medical College and Hospital (SLNMCH), according to reports. “They (medical staff) refused to admit my daughter as we were not carrying prescription and other required documents. My daughter delivered the child near the drain after she was refused admission,” the mother of the pregnant woman alleged.

She then had to deliver baby in the drain next to the hospital’s canteen, she added.

The woman, a resident of Janiguda village under the Dasmantpur block had came to the hospital on Thursday with her mother and sister to meet her husband Raghu Muduli, who is admitted at the hospital with fever since Wednesday.

Six days ago, another tribal woman had to go through similar harrowing and nightmarish experience at the health center at the Ashoknagar district headquarters of Madhya Pradesh. She gave birth to a baby out in the open as the primary health center was locked and there was no one to attend to the patients.