Denied admission by 3 hospitals, woman gives birth in auto, baby dies

Photo used for representational purposes

A pregnant woman, hunting for a hospital bed in Bengaluru, was turned away from at least three state-run facilities on Sunday. She gave birth in an auto-rickshaw that was rushing her from one hospital to another in search of medical care. However, the infant that was born without any medical assistance died.

According to a report in NDTV, three state-run hospitals - Srirampura Government Hospital, Victoria Hospital and Vanivilas, which is the maternity wing of Victoria - said they had no beds to accommodate a pregnant woman. Victoria Hospital is a designated COVID-19 facility.

The woman, who started searching for a bed in a hospital at 3 am, could not find medical aid for six hours and was forced to deliver in the auto-rickshaw. The auto driver then took the woman to KC General Hospital, but the infant died outside the hospital.

Tweeting about the plight of the woman, former Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah wrote, "A pregnant woman, who was experiencing labour pain, was denied treatment by many hospitals in Bengaluru. She lost her newborn baby after delivering it in an autorickshaw. @CMofKarnataka, I urge you to take action against all those hospitals that denied treatment."

"More non covid patients are dying in Karnataka due to denial of treatment by hospitals. @CMofKarnataka, cancel the licences of all those hospitals that deny treatments. Just a mere warning will not move hospitals," he said in another tweet.

In the past 10 days, this is the second incident of infant death due to lack of medical care. On Saturday, a man protested in front of Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa's residence, alleging that lack of medical care claimed the life of his one-month-old infant girl.

Police said that Venkatesh sat with the baby's photograph in front of the CM's house, saying the girl developed health issues on July 11 and he rushed her to a hospital, but it turned him away. He said he had approached about a dozen hospitals and all of them refused to provide any medical care to the baby. Eventually, the baby died.

Alarmed over the surging coronavirus cases across Karnataka, especially in Bengaluru, Yediyurappa, on Saturday, had directed private medical college hospitals to admit infected patients and treat them on priority to reduce active cases.

"Hospitals attached to private medical colleges in the state should allot 50 per cent of their beds from Sunday to treat Covid patients whose number has been rising daily," Yeddiyurappa had told their representatives at a meeting.

Though most of the 520 private hospitals in Bengaluru and other cities/towns across the state allotted 50 per cent of beds for COVID-19 patients on the state government's directive on June 20, hospitals attached to private colleges have not been forthcoming due to staff shortage and resource constraints.

"It has come to our notice that many private medical college hospitals are not admitting Covid patients despite an official directive to them. Patients are not getting timely treatment resulting in mortality rate increasing," the CM lamented.

The Chief Minister assured the private college hospitals of providing doctors, nurses and paramedics to treat the COVID-19 patients if they were facing shortage. The state government appointed nodal officers will monitor availability of beds in hospitals of the private medical colleges across the state.

On Wednesday, record number of 4,764 new cases were registered in Karnataka, increasing the state's tally to 75,833.

With no change in the pattern of infections, Bengaluru continues to report the highest number of cases, recording 2,050 on Wednesday, raising the city tally to 36,993, out of which 27,969 are active. Bengaluru accounts for 59 per cent of all the active cases, a slight reduction of 2 per cent in one day.

Meanwhile, 55 patients succumbed to the virus on Wednesday, raising the death toll to 1,519, with Bengaluru accounting for 735 of them.

With inputs from agencies

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