TAMBARAM : In the absence of a proper care from doctors, nurses or even attendants, a 21-year-old woman gave birth to a girl baby on the corridor outside the female medical ward of the Tambaram Taluk Government Hospital, more popularly known as Chromepet GH, on Thursday morning.

The woman waited in vain for medical attention for more than three hours before giving birth to a healthy baby girl weighing 2.5 kg.

The only assistance that Lydia Hepsi got was from a couple of women relatives who had accompanied her.

R. Raja, her 26-year-old husband, said that they had been frustrated at the sheer callousness on the part of medical staff in the hospital. Working in a private company at the Tirumudivakkam industrial estate near Pallavaram, Raja wondered how staff in the hospital could afford to be slack when it came to protecting two lives. The couple were married 18 months ago and it was his wife's first pregnancy and hence he was careful and anxious, he said.

He used to accompany his wife during monthly check-ups in the hospital and for the past month, they had been coming for check-up every week.

They came to the hospital on Wednesday and got the delivery date fixed as second week of October. They were asked to come on Tuesday next week so that her wife could undergo a scan.

``But my wife developed labour pain around 3 a.m. on Thursday and we reached the hospital in an autorickshaw around 4 a.m.'', Raja said and added that for the next three hours, her wife went through acute pain. In the absence of beds in the ward, she waited at the entrance.

She was asked by hospital staff to move elsewhere and hence she waited on the corridor adjacent to the ward, he said.

The family members' fervent pleas fell on deaf ears and at 7.40 a.m., Lydia was delivered of baby girl without assistance from any of the medical staff in the hospital.

Adding insult to injury, her relatives were asked to clean the place where the delivery took place. It was not before 9.30 a.m. that Lydia was given a bed in a corner.

The bed too was rusty and it did not have a mattress and she was lying on a straw mat that her relatives brought later.

When contacted, the doctors said delivery could take place in autorickshaws and buses even while women were being brought to the hospital.

It could occur even just a few minutes before doctors reached the ward from their rooms, they said, adding there was no complacency on their part.

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