An upsetting photograph of a 29-year-old Mexican woman delivering a baby on a patch of grass outside a medical center has ignited a national debate that led to the suspension of the head of the clinic that turned the mother away.
The government of the southern state of Oaxaca announced Wednesday that it has suspended the health center's director, Dr. Adrian Cruz, while officials conduct state and federal investigations into the incident.
Mrs Lopez, a married mother of three, said that she and her husband were turned away from the Rural Health Center of the village of San Felipe Jalapa de Diaz by a nurse who said she was only eight months pregnant and ‘still not ready’ to deliver, even though the woman was reportedly fully dilated.
She and her husband walked an hour in the dark to the clinic from the family's one-bedroom hut in the mountains of northern Oaxaca.
The couple, who are Mazatecs and do not speak Spanish, could not understand much of what the nurse was telling them beyond the word ‘no,’ so they went outside.
The couple, who are Mazatecs and do not speak Spanish, could not understand much of what the nurse was telling them beyond the word ‘no,’ so they went outside.
The nurses blamed the incident on the language barrier and claimed that they did not have enough staff on hand to treat the woman due to a partial work stoppage. An hour and a half later, at 7.30am, the woman’s water broke. Knowing that the time has come, Lopez kneeled on the grass outside the clinic and started pushing while grabbing the wall of a house.
‘I didn't want to deliver like this. It was so ugly and with so much pain,’ she said, adding she was alone for the birth because her husband was trying to persuade the nurse to call for help.
Eloy Pacheco Lopez, who was among a number of people drawn to the site by the mother’s screams, took the photo and gave it to a news reporter. It ran in several national newspapers, including the full front page of the tabloid La Razon de Mexico, and was widely circulated on the Internet.
The case illustrated the shortcomings of maternal care in Mexico, where hundreds of women still die during or right after pregnancy. It also pointed to still persistent discrimination against Mexico's indigenous people persists.
Silvia Flores, the mayor of the town where then now-infamous medical center is located, told the site Clarin that it was the second time in a year that a woman in labor has given birth on the lawn: in July, another indigenous woman delivered a baby on the same grass patch.
The Mexican federal Health Department said this week that it has sent staff to investigate what happened at the Rural Health Center of the village of San Felipe Jalapa de Diaz. The National Human Rights Commission also began an investigation after seeing news reports.
Lopez was taken in by the clinic after giving birth and discharged the same day with prescriptions for medications and products that cost her about $30, she said. Health officials say she and her baby were in good health.
‘I am naming him Salvador,’ said Lopez, a name that means ‘Savior’ in English. ‘He really saved himself.’
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