[gatagato]

The screams of 28-year-old Irma Lopez Aurelio in labor were heard throughout the town of San Felipe Jalapa de Diaz, Mexico as she gave birth on a patch of grass outside the Oaxaca medical clinic after being denied proper care and treatment.

Aurelio made the front page of La Razon de Mexico newspaper, which printed the disturbing image of the mother and her newborn with the umbilical cord still attached. The photo, which was been widespread nationally in Mexico and overseas, has stirred up controversy as to why Aurelio was forced to give birth outside the health clinic.

Aurelio and her husband, an indigenous couple from the Sierra Mazateca region in Mexico, traveled together hand-in-hand on the pitch black road before dawn on Oct. 2 to seek emergency medical attention. The mother of two, fully dilated as her water broke, was briefly examined by medical staffers but was not admitted to the clinic, according to La Razon.

The Oaxaca staffers claimed that they were too shorthanded — due to the partial work stoppage in Mexico — to treat the pregnant woman. In full labor pains, Aurelio went outside of the clinic and continued to pace back and forth to ease her pain, the NY Daily News reports. After two hours of hoping that a nurse or doctor would signal them to come into the clinic, Aurelio dropped down on one knee on the lawn outside the facility and began to push.

Eloy Pacheco Lopez, a bystander, heard the screams of Aurelio when he ran outside and took the controversial photo of her moments later after she gave birth.
The photo was first posted on Lopez's Facebook under the caption "after waiting and demanding attention for two hours, she gave birth in the yard of the hospital after being ignored by personnel under the direction of the supposed doctor Adrian René Cruz Cabrera,” according to the Latin Times. The controversial photo of Aurelio and her son went viral as it was picked up by La Razon and later posted on Twitter, where it stirred debate on the efficiency of personnel and health authorities in the Oaxaca clinic.

It was only after Aurelio had finally given birth that the clinic's staff rushed to help her and give her the proper care and treatment. Health officials in Mexico are currently investigating why the pregnant woman did not receive immediate medical treatment. The clinic staff suggested a linguistic barrier led to the confusion and further delay of immediate medical attention.

The indigenous couple does not speak Spanish and could only understand the word “no,” according to La Razon. The staff members allegedly went outside to look for Aurelio but said that they couldn’t find her, although she was directly outside the clinic.

“When they went out to look for her they didn't find her,” said German Tenorio, Oaxaca's health secretary, to a local TV station. However, he does not believe the language barrier justifies the medical negligence. According to Tenorio, although Aurelio has “problems understanding Spanish,” it is inexcusable to validate the mix-up.

This is not the first time that the Oaxaca clinic has been placed under scrutiny. According to Clarin, Silvia Flores, mayor of San Felipe Jalapa de Diaz, said it was the second time in a year that a woman had to give birth to a child on the clinic’s grass. The Oaxaca Human Rights Commission has opened up an investigation and submitted a request to obtain information from the health authorities to examine the negligence of this medical facility.


http://www.medicaldaily.com/irma-lop...ical-attention
http://www.razon.com.mx/spip.php?article191278
http://www.clarin.com/mundo/embaraza...006699631.html

[Megamel29]

Yikes. What a way to come into the world. I assume the baby is ok? The article doesn't say.

What language does the mother speak?

[gatagato]

Originally Posted by Megamel29 ↗

Yikes. What a way to come into the world. I assume the baby is ok? The article doesn't say.

What language does the mother speak?

They were finally admitted to the clinic, the baby is ok, a healthy male weighing 400grams .

Being from Sierra Mazateca, i guess they speak some of the Mazatecan languages.

[rapeWhistle]

Poor thing, she didn't make it across the border fast enough.

[PlinyTheYounger]

What a hipster; practicing old ways.

[Sharon]

Oh my God, that poor lady and child. What a sick situation to contend with. I appreciate the hospital being short-staffed but imagine if there was complications with the birth? Terrible

[el_topo]

Insane

[phadeL]

pardon my birth, i just slipped out....that's wild

[THELORDABORTION]

I hate mexico

[DiamondSmiles]

October 11, 2013

By ADRIANA GOMEZ LICON
Associated Press

MEXICO CITY (AP) -- Mexican authorities on Friday fired the director of a hospital where a woman gave birth in a waiting room, an incident that prompted outrage when video of it was widely shared on social media sites.

The Puebla state government said it removed Dr. Jose Hassan as head of the Women's Hospital of Tehuacan because he didn't let authorities know about the September 7 incident. The Federal Health Department and the National Commission of Human Rights are launching their own investigations, too.

It's the second recent internet scandal in Mexico about treatment of pregnant women. Officials this week suspended a Oaxaca state clinic's director after a photo circulated of an indigenous woman who was denied help and gave birth on the lawn of the health center.

In the Puebla hospital, authorities have not revealed the identity of the woman and the baby and have only said they were discharged in good health after a short time in observation.

In the video, spread by local media sites, the husband of the woman complains right after the baby is born that they have been waiting since the previous night for the wife to be admitted and that they had warned the receptionists her pains were growing stronger. The nurse holding the baby tells him he has the right to be upset, but, "we are short staffed and there are tons of patients."

Before the video was posted on a news site early Friday, the photograph of a Mazatec woman giving birth on the lawn of a clinic had horrified people all across Mexico.

Irma Lopez, 29, said she and her husband walked an hour and arrived to the health center in San Felipe Jalapa de Diaz at 6 a.m. on October 2, only to be turned down by the only nurse there who told them she was only eight months pregnant and, "still not ready," to deliver.

An hour and a half later, Lopez gave birth to her third child and the photo taken by a passer-by has appeared on the front pages of national newspapers. It also brought to light another case in July, where an indigenous woman also gave birth outside the same clinic, according to the village's health official

"The new information technologies that people are actively using allow us to know about these irregularities and take the appropriate measures," said the Health Department in its Friday statement.

Both cases are highlighting the shortcomings of maternal care in Mexico, where hundreds of women, mostly in poor and rural areas, still die during or right after pregnancy. Activists and nonprofit organizations are demanding better access to health care to poor women.