Mother and Child Die After Nurse Refuses to Help with Birth

August 19, 2008

By WCRP:

In February 2008, 24 year-old Mi Hla Kyi and her twin children died after a nurse refused to aid their night-time birth.

At midnight, Mi Hla Kyi went into labor and spontaneously needed emergency assistance for the birth of her twins. Her neighbor from Wai Dot village traveled ten minutes to Taung Pone, and asked Nurse Daw Thun to please attend the birth, as Mi Hla Kyi needed help as soon as possible.

According to the neighbor, “The nurse declined our request because of her husband, a village headman who doesn’t allow her to care for patients at night time. So Mi Hla Kyi had to carry on with the birth with only a midwife.”

Unfortunately, she was only able to give birth to one of her twin children as they lacked the materials necessary for a twin birth, and the midwife was not experienced in multiple births. At this point she was in desperate need of emergency healthcare and her husband sent her to La Mine hospital, in Ye township.

On the way to the hospital she abruptly began giving birth to the second child, but the baby was unavailable. Her husband brought her home and the next day she passed away. Three days later her first child also lost its life.

According to a villager, “If the nurse had sympathy and care for human life, Mi Hla Kyi would be alive now, but the nurse rejected her pleas for help and so they lost everything: her life and the lives of her twin babies, and all because the nurse’s husband Myo Aung does not allow his wife to help those in need after dark.”

Three years ago, Myo Aung became a Taung Pone head man and since that time has banned his wife to take care of patients at night. According to a Taung Pone villager the headman has stated that, “I am a head man and I simply do not allow my wife to go and cure patients at night time. It is not necessary.”

Written by HURFOM · Filed Under News