HIV patient delivers baby on roadside in Andhra
| Uma Sudhir, Monday May 31, 2010, Hyderabad |
A short while after she left a hospital, a 28-year-old woman delivered her
baby boy on the roadside in Suryapet, some 130 km from Hyderabad, in Andhra
Pradesh's Nalgonda district. Shielded by saris, she was assisted by a woman who
had escorted her and also women who worked nearby.
The women were farm labour and also worked on construction sites, so their hands
may have been cut and bruised. Dangerous since the women unknowingly were
helping an HIV positive patient give birth and were not wearing any protective
gear like handgloves.
The woman had gone to a government hospital for her delivery on Sunday. Doctors
there shifted her to the Observation Room once they realised she was an HIV
patient. They were reluctant to handle her case. Their attitude allegedly scared
the woman and she left hoping to get help elsewhere and also worried that her
HIV status would become known to many at the hospital and her village nearby.
The hospital has now suspended the two duty doctors, Andhra Pradesh State Aids
Control Society director, V.Chandravadan, told NDTV.
If the delivery had been medically supervised, the mother would have been
administered a drug called nevirapine to ensure that her baby was not born
infected with HIV. Both mother and son are now at a community health centre for
HIV patients, and the baby has been given nevirapine there.
07-05-2010
