The chances of the baby's survival would have been more had the child been delivered through C section. However, the callousness of the doctors resulted in the death of the baby. N Ganesh reports.

After the shocking incident of a woman losing her newborn due to the apathy of civic doctors, the administration has initiated an inquiry and suspended the doctors concerned.

The woman identified as Tabbassum Sheikh, 22, was brought to Bhabha hospital at Kurla on Tuesday midnight. Anticipating a breech birth, doctors at Bhabha hospital asked Sheikh's family members to take her to LTMG at Sion or KEM hospital. A breech birth is an abnormal delivery in which the baby enters the birth canal with the buttocks or its feet as opposed to normal delivery in which it enters head first.

Both LTMG and KEM have sonography facility that would have aided in the safe delivery of the child. However, Sheikh's labour pains had peaked and she could no longer hold for the 15 minute ride to LTMG at Sion and delivered right outside the hospital on the pavement.

Though the hospital administration was embarrassed by the incident, they admitted the mother and child after people gathered outside the hospital made a hue and cry. The child, however, succumbed to complications associated with breech birth. The chances of the baby's survival would have been more had the child been delivered through C section. However, the callousness of the doctors resulted in the death of the baby.

"We had initiated an inquiry and based on the preliminary findings the doctors concerned have been suspended pending further inquiry," said Dr M V Wadiwala, the medical superintendent of Bhabha hospital.