Gurugram: A woman in labour was brought to a government primary healthcare centre in Faridabad on the night of 15 and 16 May, only to find the main gate shut and no doctor or nurse. By the time any medical staff reached, the woman had already delivered her child–outside, in the parking area, under torchlight.
The Haryana Human Rights Commission has taken cognisance of the incident at the Government Primary Health Centre in Sector-3, Ballabhgarh, Faridabad, calling it a “grim, pathetic situation” that strikes at the heart of what the state government claims to have built.
In an order dated 25 May, Commission Chairperson Justice Lalit Batra observed that the allegations, if true, make a mockery of the Janani Shishu Suraksha Karyakram (JSSK), the flagship central programme that guarantees free, cashless, and safe institutional deliveries at government health facilities across Haryana.
“On the one hand, the State of Haryana claims full implementation of JSSK,” the order notes. “And on the other hand, a pregnant woman, despite reaching the doorstep of the Government Hospital, could not access the labour room and emergency obstetric care in time.”
Newspaper photographs submitted to the commission along with a complaint by a social activist showed the delivery-related procedures being carried out in the open area under torchlight.
The commission said these “prima facie depict a disturbing situation”. The attendants, it noted, had arranged a wheelchair themselves and waited for considerable time before any medical staff arrived.
The commission has directed four officials to submit detailed reports at least a week before the next date of hearing on 19 August: the Additional Chief Secretary of the Health and Family Welfare Department, the Director General of Health Services, the Civil Surgeon of Faridabad, and the In-charge of the PHC at Sector-3, Ballabhgarh.
The order directs the Civil Surgeon to explain the “grim situation” and “show cause why compensation should not be recommended for the serious violation of human dignity and human rights”.
Dr Jayant Ahuja, Civil Surgeon, Faridabad, told ThePrint on Friday that the health department was not at fault in this case.
“After the news about this incident was published in the local newspapers, we contacted the woman’s husband as well as her Dewar (brother-in-law). Both have confirmed that they didn’t contact any of the primary health centre (PHC) staff, nor did they call 112 for an ambulance,” he said.
“They brought the woman to the PHC at 1.40 in the night and kept knocking at the OPD side of the centre. However, since the OPD is closed during the night, no one could hear their knocks on the doors. The woman was third gravida (third time pregnant); she delivered outside the PHC within minutes,” the Civil Surgeon added.
However, the questions the commission has raised go beyond this single incident.
It has asked whether doctors and nursing staff were available at the hospital during emergency night hours, whether emergency obstetric care protocols were followed, what the duty roster showed, and what the current health status of the mother and newborn is.
The commission invoked Article 21 of the Constitution, the right to life and personal liberty, observing that “a pregnant woman is entitled to immediate, safe and dignified medical assistance at a Government healthcare institution”.
Any failure, it said, “would not only endanger the lives of the mother and newborn child but would also amount to a serious violation of human dignity and human rights”.
Faridabad is one of Haryana’s largest and most industrialised districts.
That a delivery was conducted under torchlight outside a government hospital there, in 2026, was what the Commission called a painful reminder of “primitive times when deliveries were conducted at home in the absence of proper medical facilities”, the commission said.
(Edited by Sugita Katyal)
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