Woman gives birth to baby outside LRH’s gynae dept

PESHAWAR: A picture of two men covering with a shawl a woman giving birth to a child at the main entrance of Lady Reading Hospital (LRH)’s Gynaecology department went viral on Saturday with many people criticising the hospital administration for denying access to the patients brought to its emergency.

Presently, the LRH administration has suspended all other services and dedicated the hospital to the patients suffering from the coronavirus.

According to sources in the hospital, a poor family had brought a lady due to complications in her pregnancy but the security guards allegedly didn’t give them access to the doctors inside the gynaecology department of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s largest public sector hospital.

According to eyewitnesses, the security guards told the family that LRH has suspended all other services due to the coronavirus pandemic and advised them to take the patient to another hospital in the city.

The arguments between the security guards and attendants of the woman took time as she went into labour.

She couldn’t get access to the labour room and was taken to a corner of the gynaecology department where two men provided her with a cover with a shawl and the woman delivered a child in the open.

Someone took pictures of the scene and started sharing them on social media, criticising the LRH administration for its poor performance and seeking the attention of the government to take notice of this incident.

Since LRH is once again suffering from grouping and leg-pulling among the faculty members and hospital administration, people opposed to the administration never let any incident go unnoticed that could expose mismanagement of the LRH authorities.

Also, some faculty members advised the hospital administration that they should stop entertaining other patients but still not deny emergency services to patients brought to the accident and emergency department.

Mohammad Aasim, the LRH spokesman, told The News that it was not true that the woman was denied access to the labour room. He said footage of that particular incident was checked that showed the security guard was properly trying to facilitate attendants of the woman and asking people to stay away from the emergency department.

He claimed the woman delivered the child before reaching the labour room. The LRH spokesman said every day up to 50 deliveries took place in the labour room of the hospital and they never stopped providing services to the patients brought there.