A maternal ward of horrors

Shajapur, Madhya Pradesh: Imagine bringing a baby into this world on a table: stained and infected! That's the experience of lakhs of poor women across India. It's a miracle that so many of them make it out alive.

With government's intervention, more and more mothers are coming to the hospital for having their babies. But the images unfolding in these hospitals show that both the mother and the child are exposed to greater risk.

At the civil hospital, in Agar Tehsil of Madhya Pradesh, there is just one delivery table.

The table has got blood stains on it; it gets a wipe over with blood-stained clothes.

It is then readied for the next mother in queue, with another swift wipe; no disinfectant used, risking fatal infection for the next mother.

Here the disposable surgical gloves are not thrown; simply rinsed and kept. They are not sterilized, again magnifying the infection risk.

The hospital's sanitary napkins, sources say are routinely stolen forcing poor mothers to use old and cheap synthetic sarees.

The synthetic does not absorb blood too well, yet has to be used for long hours.

In 90 per cent cases this leads to uterine infection, a common cause of maternal death.

It's not that the staff does not know better.

Two days later, as the NDTV cameras roll they rush about to present a better picture, burying the reality most women of Agar endure.

This is the sorry state of affairs in Madhya Pradesh, a state with one of the worst maternal mortality statistics.