HC seeks report on woman’s death
Taking suo motu cognisance of media reports that a destitute woman died on the pavement in the capital after giving birth to a child, the Delhi high court on Wednesday said hospitals cannot deny treatment to any pregnant woman.
“Perplexed” over the fact that the baby girl had to take her first breath on the footpath despite court directions to provide medical facility to the poor in the capital, a division bench comprising Delhi high court Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justice Manmo-han said, “It is the sacrosanct duty of the government to see that children are looked after properly in hospitals..”
Seeking an explanation from the city government on why such incident happened, the court asked it to file an affidavit within four weeks.
On July 26, a woman gave birth to a baby girl on a footpath at Shankar Market. She died later. Expressing concern over the incident despite various welfare schemes for the poor, the court said, “Central government has framed a bouquet of schemes for the destitute and their children. How then has this incident happened? Such incident should not occur in a civilised society.”
The court appointed senior counsel Colin Gonsalves as amicus curiae (Friend of the court) in the matter. The doctors, who detected the baby suffering from septicaemia, appeared before the division bench and said the child was out of danger as she was in the initial stage of the disease and is now cured.
The court, however, directed the doctors to do periodical health check-up of the girl to ascertain the improvement in her health.
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