A woman gave birth to a baby on the road after Barguna General Hospital allegedly declined to provide medical assistance, despite her being in labor.
The woman, Munni Begum, was admitted to the maternity ward of the Barguna General Hospital with labor pains on Wednesday.
When she asked the doctors and nurses to operate on her, they allegedly refused and suggested the family transfer her to a different private hospital.
Subsequently, the family decided to transport the expectant mother.
However, as they were en route, her pain intensified, and she ended up delivering her baby on the street in front of an NGO named CBDP on the Zilla School Road.
When Najma Begum, the housekeeper of the NGO, heard Munni crying, she came out of the facility to help her.
She said: “I saw the woman riding a battery-operated three-wheeler on the road. She was crying She gave birth before she could reach the hospital.”
Following the swift severing of the umbilical cord, both the newborn and mother were transported to Barguna General Hospital, she added.
Nilufa Yasmin, another employee of CBDP, said they visited the hospital in the afternoon to check on the newborn and the mother. “However, when we inquired about the patient's whereabouts and condition, the hospital staff declined to provide any information on the matter."
Several media personnel also reportedly went to the hospital to check on the mother and baby, but they too, could not find her there.
In this regard, the hospital’s Resident Medical Officer Dr Taskiya Siddika, said: “I was informed that due to the hospital's delay, the woman’s relatives decided to transfer her to another hospital. When they returned to the hospital with the newborn, I personally visited them.”
She added the mother and the newborn have not been granted permission to be discharged from the hospital.
Incidentally, last year, in the Maitha area of Barguna district town, another woman had been referred from the general hospital to a private clinic, and she too ended up giving birth during transit.