BENGALURU: A 34-year-old pregnant woman from Sikkim was thrown out of a nursing home on Sunday afternoon while she was suffering labour pain, as the hospital suspected that she had COVID-19.
She has been visiting the nursing home since the beginning of her pregnancy for check-ups. Two days ago they took the woman's swab test but did not reveal the result to the family.
Rosline Gomes, a close friend of the family said, "She developed labour pain around 11:30 am on Sunday and her family took her to Asha Nursing Home in Viveknagar. Around 2:30 pm they sent her out of the
hospital and refused to admit her, while she was in severe labour pain. They said they cannot treat someone with suspected COVID-19 symptoms. She was made to sit in a chair outside the nursing home."
She was there for 6 hours and no doctor or nurse attended to her. "How can the hospital be so negligent and throw out a woman in labour pain. They could have referred her to another hospital or guided us. It is their responsibility to take care of her. We were all panicking and began searching for hospitals to take her to. At around 8 pm we took her to Vagus Hospital in Malleswaram and she delivered a healthy baby boy on Monday morning," Rosline said.
When Vagus contacted the nursing home, they found that the result was positive. The family also got a call from BBMP later confirming the positive result. As they were unable to afford Vagus hospital, she was shifted to Vani Vilas Hospital later on Monday night.
"It was a huge risk to the mother and baby. The nursing home could have let her deliver and then shifted her to another hospital for COVID-19 treatment. This is a serious issue and is no way to treat a patient, irrespective of if they have corona or not," Rosline added.
Responding to this, Pankaj Kumar Pandey, Commissioner for Health and Family Welfare said," We have a chain of maternity hospitals and will get in touch with them for a discussion. They have to reserve 50 percent of their beds for COVID-19 treatment. As for this case, we will look into what action we can take."
Minister of Medical Education, Dr K Sudhakar recently said that criminal action will be taken against private hospitals for denying treatment to COVID-19 patients. However, he was unreachable for comment.