Puttur: Baby's 'Way' Out - No Birth Certificate for Girl Born in Ambulance!

Daijiworld Media Network – Puttur (SP)

Puttur, Feb 9: The departments concerned seem to be having no clue about the procedures to issue birth certificates to babies born neither in hospitals nor at homes. This predicament has been bothering the parents of Ramya, a two-month-old child, who was born in an ambulance.

Saumya, wife of Raju Mogera, a daily wage worker from Sampaje, had been sent to her parental home for delivery. On December 6, 2011, Saumya suffered from labour pains, and the government’s ‘108 ambulance service’ was summoned to take her to hospital. Before the vehicle reached Puttur hospital, Saumya gave birth to a baby girl at Koila village in the ambulance itself. The personnel of the ambulance admitted her later into the hospital in Puttur.

Saumya got admitted as an inpatient in hospital records. Two days later, the mother-daughter duo was discharged. Raju Mogera applied for the birth certificate of his daughter with the municipal office here. But the office said it had no record of the girl's birth, as, hospitals are mandated to file periodical reports about babies delivered in their wards, and Ramya was not born in any hospital!

Although the hospital has recorded the birth of Ramya as born in an ambulance, the hospital authorities claim they are not duty-bound to report this birth, as it occurred outside the hospital. The ‘108 ambulance’ service says information about the baby’s birth in vehicle was submitted to Puttur hospital, and that it is not their duty to submit birth details to the civic administration.

The parents of Ramya are tired of knocking at the doors of authorities to get a birth certificate, an important document that shapes their baby’s future. Where will the illiterate parents go? Should the baby’s future suffer because she was born in an ambulance, which was not her mistake, who would be responsible?