Lockdown: She had to walk 5 kms in search of hospital to deliver her child | Bengaluru

Amid the nationwide coronavirus lockdown, A heart-wrenching video of a pregnant woman, who walked for more than five kilometers in Bengaluru begging for medical help, went viral on social media. The pregnant lady was desperately in need of medical assistance.

It has been learnt that the woman delivered a baby in an empty plot in Bengaluru’s Doddabommasandra before reaching the hospital. In a village, it’s not that easy for a person to go to a hospital in case of an emergency situation. How often have we seen pregnant ladies losing their lives after failing to reach the hospital on time? Thankfully, a doctor couple managed to reach the spot at the right time and saved the life of the mother and the baby. 

The woman was forced to head towards the hospital on foot for over five kilometers owing to the ongoing national lockdown. Speaking with TNM, Dr Ramya Himanish, a dentist who runs Krupa Clinic in Doddabommasandra, stated the pregnant woman along with her husband was unable to find any auto or rickshaw so they resorted to walk for hours but could not find any hospitals open due to the shutdown.

“They reached us somewhere around 9am in the morning. But they were not expecting the delivery as they were given a date for sometime in May. They were searching for doctors as the woman was experiencing pain. It was when we tried to attend to her, she asked to use the washroom. But since the washroom was upstairs she said she could not climb and decided to relieve herself in a neighboring empty plot where she delivered the baby,” Dr Ramya said.

“After delivery, we thought the baby was dead as the boy was not breathing and the mother was bleeding profusely and she fell unconscious. My husband is a general physician and I called him for help and we did not have anything other than dental equipment. Somehow we could control the bleeding and she regained consciousness, that is when we started giving attention to the baby. We found there was mud in his nose and after my husband gave mouth to mouth respiration, he started breathing,” she added.

Dr Ramya said that the couple was running out of money and they could not speak Kannada and they felt hesitate to speak with most people. After both the baby and mother came out of danger, Dr Ramya said that she called for an ambulance which took them to KC General Hospital.

“It was only yesterday, that someone from the hospital sent me a photo of the baby and told me that both the mother and baby are fine,” Dr Ramya said. 

At present, both the mother and the baby are in a safe zone in the KC General Hospital in Bengaluru city.

Writer, historian, and activist Dharam Sikarwar is a very active author The Youth. He writes on national and international issues, environment, politics. He is an avid book reader as well.