HYDERABAD: Twenty-year-old Janeela was in acute labour pain. Yet, she had to travel 200 km from Gadwal to Hyderabad and wait for hours at each of the seven hospitals her husband took her to. In the end, both Janeela and her one-day-old baby boy died. Her husband is now left on his own, heartbroken and unable to pull himself together.
Doctors at all the hospitals who turned Janeela away did not want to touch her because she was from the Covid-containment district of Gadwal. And when they did test her, it came back negative. There could be no plight worse than Janeela’s traumatic experience. Each time she looked up for kindness, only stony-faced medical staff of hospitals stared back.
Even as she was fighting this battle, she watched her baby she had given birth to only the day before, die at Niloufer Hosital on Sunday. Finally, she herself gave up the struggle and died on Monday. Her tragic tale moved the State Human Rights Commission, but she was not there anymore, past the stage of seeking any.
The Commission, after learning about the incident, sought a detailed report from the government on Tuesday and the hospitals where she was turned away from or treated. The SHRC sought to know why she was made to go through the agonising ordeal.
No help from Koti Maternity Hosp too, couple travelled further to get aid
Janeela’s bad luck began when she developed labour pain on April 24 at her home in Yapadinne village in Ieeza mandal in Gadwal district. Her husband, Mahendra, rushed her to the Government Hospital in Gadwal. There, he pleaded with doctors to save her but they informed him that as she was in need of an emergency surgery, she should be taken to the Government Hospital in Mahabubnagar. The couple were sent in an ambulance to the Mahabubnagar Hospital. But Mahendra and Janeela were not told what exactly the problem was.
On reaching Mahabubnagar, the couple found that doctors at the government hospital were not interested in admitting Janeela and performing whatever surgery was required. They asked Janeela to go to Hyderabad as it was the appropriate place for surgeries for complications like the one she was suffering from. According to Mahendra, they then went to Koti Maternity Hospital in Hyderabad but staff there asked them to go to Gandhi Hospital as the couple had come from Gadwal, a containment zone. At Gandhi Hospital, after she tested negative, Janeela was sent to Petlaburj Maternity Hospital. Much to the couple’s relief, Janeela was admitted and a surgery was done.
She gave birth to a baby boy on Saturday, making her forget the pain she had been through. But the joy did not last long as on Sunday, the boy developed respiratory complications. As Petlaburj is essentially a maternity hospital, the doctors sent the boy to Niloufer Hospital where he died the same day while undergoing treatment. Later, Janeela was shifted to Osmania Hospital where she died on Monday. Former Congress MLA S Samapth Kumar, at whose instance, cadre helped Mahendra perform his wife’s last rites at Rajoli in Gadwal, sought action against Gadwal District Collector for dereliction of duty. This was because the woman was in dire need of surgery and yet sent to Mahabubnagar.