This is the real urban poor: woman gives birth on footpath, loses baby.

On Tuesday, a woman labourer gave birth to a baby on a footpath in Ahmedabad because she was denied admission by government hospitals. Asha Bariya is a labourer and was six months pregnant when she started feeling pain. After being turned away by two hospitals, for different reasons, she gave birth to a premature baby that died.

Bariya’s case was reported in The Times of India’s Ahmedabad edition. The article says one hospital sent her to a different one because her baby would be premature and the first hospital did not have any incubators. The other hospital refused her because she could not provide proof of her marriage. NDTV’s online news portal also reported that the local police have not registered any first information report (FIR) against the hospital because the doctors had “advised her in good faith”.

This episode, which was largely ignored by national media, offers a disturbing look at the miserable state of emergency and medical services available to the urban poor. Nowhere in the guidelines set for government hospital is it written that a hospital requires a marriage certificate to admit a pregnant woman. Additionally, Bariya was bleeding and in labour, which suggests she should have been treated by the casualty department, if not anywhere else.

According to the guidelines, if a government hospital cannot accommodate a patient, they can refer them to private hospital. While it is not known whether the hospitals that Bariya approached really were full, there’s no doubt that as a labourer, Bariya wouldn’t have thought of going to a private hospital (which is known to be the exorbitant option) herself. Plus, if the government hospital turns her away, what were the realistic chances of a private hospital accepting her?