Health minister orders probe

The #jamaat most certainly has been hazardous to the entire country. However, it does not mean that citizens of the… https://t.co/mDtFlGt5wf — Vishvendra Singh Bharatpur (@vishvendrabtp) 1585992830000

ALWAR/JAIPUR: A pregnant woman on Saturday lost her baby after being allegedly turned away from a government-run women’s hospital in Bharatpur because she happened to be a resident of an area that has reported five Covid-19 cases linked to the Tablighi Jamaat congregation in Delhi.The 33-year-old woman’s husband, Irfan Khan, said his wife gave birth in an ambulance that was taking her to Jaipur, 187km from Bharatpur, after a doctor and his assistants at the Zenana Hospital allegedly denied her admission on hearing that she was from the Sikri area. The baby died before getting medical attention, he said.“As soon as we reached the hospital, the doctor on duty came out and asked where we were from. When I mentioned Sikri, he wanted to know my religion. He then refused to treat my wife. I pleaded and cried, but the doctor refused to budge. He instead referred my wife to a Jaipur hospital,” Irfan told TOI. “The same doctor again insulted me when we returned to the hospital after my wife delivered our baby in the ambulance.”State tourism minister Vishvendra Singh, a member of the erstwhile royal family of Bharatpur, tweeted that a woman in labour had been denied treatment at a government hospital because she was a Muslim.“The #jamaat most certainly has been hazardous to the entire country. However, it does not mean that citizens of the Islamic faith are treated the way a pregnant lady was handled by the doctors in #Bharatpur Zenana Hospital. The local MLA is also the minister of state for health,” he wrote.Minister of state for health Subhash Garg later ordered an inquiry. “I have been apprised of the incident, and it is extremely condemnable. I have given orders to the district collector to immediately initiate an inquiry,” he said.Dr Rupendra Jha, medical officer of Zenana Hospital, denied that the woman was turned away on grounds of religion or the area she is from. “The doctor on duty had given the woman medication for bleeding and a nurse administered an injection before she was referred to Jaipur,” he said. Bharatpur collector Nathmal Didel said, “The baby was born premature at around seven months. In our preliminary inquiry, we did not find any negligence on the hospital’s part.”