Scorned, HIV+ woman gives birth on road

A HIV positive woman on Sunday gave birth on the road after being refused admission by two government hospitals, in the Bareilly town of Uttar Pradesh, around 250 kms from here.

According to reports, 35-year-old Madhuri Devi, who was in the last week of her pregnancy, was admitted to the district women's hospital in Bareilly on Saturday morning by her husband Mukesh. Both Mukesh and Mahduri are HIV positive.

When Mukesh came back in the evening with food, a nurse at the hospital told him that Madhuri could not deliver at the hospital since she was HIV positive.
“I was forced to sign the discharge papers and Madhuri was discharged at midnight,” he said.

Madhuri, who was having labor pains by then, was taken to Rohilkhand Medical College. However, she was thrown out from there as well by next morning. “When the doctors came to know that she was HIV positive, they asked me to take her away,” he said.

As Mukesh was trying to arrange a vehicle to take Madhuri to some private hospital, she gave birth to a boy on the pavement near the medical college.

“We were blessed with a child 12 years after our marriage...we visited every temple in the town.....our first child had died soon after birth, but I had no idea that I will have to face so much humiliation,” Mukesh said.

“Why do you HIV positive people go for babies?” one of the doctors had allegedly asked Mukesh. The doctors, however, claimed that Mukesh had voluntarily got his wife discharged from the hospital.

Medical college authorities promised to investigate into the matter. “May be there was no kit required for such deliveries,” the officials said.