A sweeper allegedly helped deliver an infant in Madhya Pradesh's Vidisha district hospital.
Rajkumari, 26, was in for a shock when instead of a doctor, the sweeper at the maternity ward came in to help her deliver her child. Her family alleges a doctor came to check only after 48 hours had passed.
"It was a sweeper who delivered the baby on Tuesday. A nurse came by later to check on the child but no doctor was there," said her mother, Phullo Bai.
The hospital in question is the Sironj government hospital, in Madhya Pradesh. Though it has a sanctioned strength of 9 doctors - who are meant to look after patients from nearly 300 villages - locals complain there is often only one doctor on duty.
The district administration admits that there is a staff crunch.
"There is a shortage of staff and doctors. But we have issued notices to doctors to join within the next 3 to 4 days," said Dr BL Arya, the Chief Medical Officer of Vidisha district. On being asked how a sweeper was allowed to deliver a baby, he hastily replied, "We are investigating the matter. This is wrong. The guilty will be punished."
There are 66 civil hospitals, 334 community health centres and 1,171 primary health centres for the 7.3 crore people in Madhya Pradesh. Nearly 9,000 sub-centres help boost rural health infrastructure in the state.
But the numbers translate poorly when it comes to actual facilities on the ground.
Take the case of Arpan and her husband Roop Singh, both in their 20s, who were forced to bring their ailing 11-month-old son to the hospital on a bullock cart.
"The hospital said that ambulances don't ply to our village. It took us a long time to get here," Roop Singh told NDTV.
Of the two ambulances at the hospital, one lies unused since its driver died last week. The other vehicle broke down weeks ago.
The opposition blames corruption for the poor condition of health services. It alleges that of the Rs 4,740 crore allocated for health services in this year's budget, only a fraction will actually be used.
"We have raised the issue of corruption time and again. Despite spending crores, nothing reaches the common man. Patients don't go to hospitals here to get cured, they only take a step closer to death," Congress spokesperson KK Mishra said.