Woman delivers baby in hospital corridor in Uttar Pradesh, probe begins

FARUKKHABAD: Delivering babies outside the hospital or on way to the hospital has become a common occurrence in Uttar Pradesh.

In the latest incident on Sunday night, a woman was forced to deliver her child in the corridor of Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital, in full public view, after the doctors refused to admit her, saying there were no beds available.

The newly-born baby was lying in one end of the corridor, on what appears to be a piece of red cloth. A woman relative later picks up the baby.

According to reports, the woman was taken to the labour room in the hospital by the doctors on duty after she gave birth to her baby.

Monika Rani, the District Magistrate of Farukkhabad, said she has already ordered a probe into the incident.

"I have taken suo motu cognizance and ordered an enquiry. We will try and ascertain the truth behind the incident. If anyone is found guilty of negligence, we will take strict action," she said.

The Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital is the only specialised government hospital in Farukkhabad. It was in the news in 2017 too, when 49 babies died in a month there, just days after reports of child deaths at a hospital in Gorakhpur due to lack of oxygen.

Parents had blamed a shortage of medicine and oxygen for the Farukkhabad hospital deaths too. The state government, however, had denied it.

India has seen a 20 per cent fall in neonatal deaths -- deaths within the first month after birth of a child -- between 2011 and 2016, according to the World Health Organisation.

There has also been a 33 per cent improvement in survival rate among children between the first month and a year after birth, referred to as post-neonatal. But despite the improvement, 1 in 40 babies die during birth in India.