Woman delivers baby outside hospital ward

A 25-year-old woman was today forced to give birth to a baby outside a hospital ward here as she waited to be given a bed, leading to allegations of negligence against the staff at the facility.
The woman delivered the baby just outside the trauma centre of the Ambala City Civil Hospital with authorities there now having ordered a probe into the matter.
The woman's mother, Sunita Devi, told reporters that she had brought her daughter to the trauma centre on a rickshaw after the latter complained of labour pains in the morning.
But with the lady doctor on duty unavailable, she approached the nursing staff who asked her to bring an Out Patient Department slip from the main building for her daughter. But, being illiterate, Sunita said she could not collect the OPD slip.

The nursing staff, however, refused to help her out and asked the duo to wait instead, Sunita alleged.
"Left with no other option, we sat on a bench close to the entry gate. In the meantime, my daughter suffered a severe labour pain and delivered a baby there," she said. The woman was thereafter taken by hospital staff into the ward, where she is now admitted.

Ravi, the husband of the woman, alleged negligence on part of the hospital.
"It was the first delivery of my wife and worse could have happened," said Ravi, who works as a labourer.
Civil Surgeon Dr Vinod Gupta, meanwhile, said that a probe has been ordered into the matter.

He added that the doctor on duty was busy in an operation at the time when the woman arrived at the hospital.