Banke, Sept 13 , Kamala Adhikari from Jajarkot who was admitted to the Bheri Hospital Nepalgunj after suffering from labour pain, gave birth to a girl child at 5 am today. Kamala’s husband Milan Adhikari was also at the hospital and the couple was happy about the child birth in normal condition.
This was Kamala’s second delivery after her frst delivery was a still birth, and the couple was happy. But their happiness did not last long as the hospital informed Milan that their baby had died some time after its birth. The employees at the maternity ward of the hospital handed the ‘body’ of the baby wrapped in cloth and put inside a polythene bag for burial.
A distressed Milan started preparing for the child’s last rites. As he was heading towards the burial site, Bulbuliya of Nepalgunj, with the baby in his arms for its last rites, the ‘dead’ baby started moving. He brought the child back to the hospital after it started moving. The child is kept in ICU care at the hospital at present. Milan was enraged at the hospital’s negligence. “The hospital staff declared the baby dead although it was alive.
They even put the baby inside a plastic bag and gave it to us for performing the last rites. This is height of negligence of the hospital. Action should be taken for this sheer negligence,” he said. He even said that the hospital employees had asked for Rs 2,000 from him as the burial fee. They had said that they would bury the baby.
But Milan had said that he would bury the baby himself. “On the one hand they declare a baby who is alive as dead and on the other the hospital staff ask for money with us as the charge for burying the baby. What is this,” he wondered. As he said, the hospital employees had asked him for Rs 500 as the charge for washing the baby’s napkin and Rs 1,500 as burial charge. The child was born in 23 weeks of conception. It weighs 600 grams.
