KOLKATA: In a shocking incident, a woman in Kolkata's premier medical college and hospital had to take out her own foetus and clean up the place early this year.

 

Romita (not her real name), who narrated her ordeal to the West Bengal Health Minister Surya Kant Mishra at a programme on Thursday, said she had to bring out the foetus herself at the Calcutta Medical College and Hospital after she was administered drugs for abortion but none of the nurses or 'ayahs' (attendants) came to her help when she found the foetus coming out one night.

 

The 24-year-old said, "I brought out the foetus myself during the night and cleaned up the place."

 

"I was pregnant and consulting a doctor at the Rehmat Bhai Hospital on Ganesh Chandra Avenue. I went for a routine check up and after undergoing some blood tests it was found that I was HIV positive.

 

"The doctor there sent me to School of Tropical Medicine (STM). I went there and they asked me to abort since my unborn child would be born with the virus. I got admitted to the Calcutta Medical College and Hospital where I underwent the horror.

 

"I was not given a proper bed. I slept on a rubber with cockroaches swarming all around. I had fever and was in pain. The nurses never came to help me. I was not even given support to go to the toilet though I was very weak.

 

"I was given medicines to facilitate the abortion.

 

"One night when I went to the toilet I felt that the child was coming out. None came to assist me. I sat on the floor in pain and saw the feet of the child coming out. With no one around I pulled the baby out," Romita said.

 

"I cleaned up the place myself. Though the doctors at both the STM and the hospital were caring, the nurses and attendants behaved strangely. I could never imagine that I would have to undergo such a horrible experience.

 

Romita, who is a mother of a two-and-half-year-old boy, lives in Jaanbazar area of central Kolkata with her husband who works in a garment shop in New Market area nearby.

 

Both her husband and child have tested negative so far.

 

Ramen Pandey of Anti-Psychotopic Substance and Drug Abuse Forum, a non-governmental organisation which is now providing her support and treating her, said the case was shocking.

 

"We heard about her from our intervention programme. She has narrated her experience to Health Minister Surya Kanta Misra and the minister has assured to bear her treatment cost," Pandey said.

 

"We are planning to start an awareness programme in hospital and nursing homes among attendants and nursing about HIV/AIDS," he said.

 

Dr Anup Roy, principal, Calcutta Medical College and Hospital, said he has not heard about the incident.

 

"Our doctors and other staff of the department here are well aware of HIV/AIDS and there is no reason she should be discriminated against," Roy said.

 

"Such deliveries and abortions are not the first. There are many such cases here," he said.

 

West Bengal State AIDS Prevention and Control Society Director Rajendra Shukla was angry. He said: "Doctors and nurses are well aware of the disease and know how people contact the infection. Even then untouchability continues. They must get over the prejudices."