Kamala Adhikari from Jajarkot who was admitted to the Bheri Hospital Nepalgunj after labor pain, gave birth to a girl 5 am Friday.
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 first turned out a still birth, and the couple was happy.
But their happiness did not last long as the hospital informed Milan that their baby died some time after its birth.
The employees at the maternity ward of the hospital handed the 'body' of the baby wrapped in a cloth and put inside a polythene bag for burial. A distressed Milan started preparing for the child's last rites.
As he was heading toward the burial site, Bulbuliya of Nepalgunj, with the baby in his arms for the last rites, the 'dead' baby started moving.
He brought the child back to the hospital after it started moving. The child is currently kept at the Intensive Care Unit of the hospital.
Milan is enraged at the hospital's negligence. "The hospital staff declared the baby dead although she 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 in 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 staffers 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.
The hospital issuing a statement claimed that the baby was declared dead after she did not cry after birth, breathe, move her limbs, and her heart was not beating. It claimed that it is almost impossible to save babies born in around 22 weeks and weighing 500 grams even in the developed countries.
It said such delivery, therefore, has to be treated as an abortion. It claimed the baby was not delivered and rather had expelled automatically shortly after the mother reached hospital.
