A woman was forced to give birth on a Mexican medical clinic lawn after walking an hour to get there with her husband only to be told she had to wait outside.
The indigenous woman was photographed squatting on the lawn seconds after giving birth, with the newborn still attached by its umbilical cord, the Associated Press reported via USA Today.
The local government announced they had suspended Doctor Adrian Cruz, the director of the health center.
When Irma Lopez, 29, entered the clinic she was told by staff that she was not ready to deliver because she was only eight months pregnant.
Lopez told the AP she had been told to take a walk and that a doctor would examine her the following morning, Lopez couldn't wait that long.
"I didn't want to deliver like this. It was so ugly and with so much pain," Lopez, who went through the ordeal alone as her husband begged a nurse for help, said.
The couple is Mazatecs, so they do not speak Spanish, the Daily Mail reported. The nurse said the incident was a result of the language barrier between the patient and staff.
The nurse also said the clinic was understaffed due to a "partial work stoppage," and nobody was available to treat Lopez.
The photo of the incident, which was taken by a witness, ran in a number of newspapers and even made the front page of one Mexican tabloid.
The incident demonstrates the problems with Mexico's maternal care system, the AP reported.
"The photo is giving visibility to a wider structural problem that occurs within indigenous communities: Women are not receiving proper care. They are not being offered quality health services, not even a humane treatment," Mayra Morales, Oaxaca's representative for the national Network for Sexual and Reproductive Rights, told the AP.
About one in five women in the Mexican state of Oaxac did not give birth in a hospital in 2011. Some say Mexico has improved its maternal care, but there are still 50 deaths per 100,000 births, the World Health Organization reported via the AP.
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