Hospital-bed shortage sees baby born in taxi
The Local/og - [email protected]
Published: 15 May, 2014 CET.
Updated: Thu 15 May 2014 08:43 CET
A Swedish man had to help his fiancée give birth to their baby boy in the back seat of a taxi because the family was turned away by a midwife who said there wasn't one single hospital bed available in all of Stockholm.
The expectant mother, 35, was on the way to the Södersjukhuset hospital on Monday with her fiancé and a camera man in tow. "We'd planned it for so long. It was going to be our first son and we had very high expectations. We planned to document the whole day with photos," the woman told the Aftonbladet tabloid. However, a nurse told the soon-to-be four passengers that every maternity ward in the Stockholm region was full and that the family and their cameraman would instead have to head to the small town of Nyköping - an hour south. The nurse told the woman that as it was her first child, an hour shouldn't inconvenience her. But things took a turn for the dramatic halfway to Nyköping. "I felt the baby was on the way... I screamed 'The baby's coming, the baby's coming!' but my guy didn't believe me. But there was nothing we could do about it," she told the paper. The baby was then delivered without complication by the woman's fiancé. While grateful for a healthy boy, the family were left with a bitter taste in their mouth when it came to Stockholm health care. "This was an emergency. They should have prioritized it. I'm worried how this could play out for other families," the new father told Aftonbladet. Healthcare is managed at county level in Sweden, rather than by the state or the municipality.
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The expectant mother, 35, was on the way to the Södersjukhuset hospital on Monday with her fiancé and a camera man in tow.
"We'd planned it for so long. It was going to be our first son and we had very high expectations. We planned to document the whole day with photos," the woman told the Aftonbladet tabloid.
However, a nurse told the soon-to-be four passengers that every maternity ward in the Stockholm region was full and that the family and their cameraman would instead have to head to the small town of Nyköping - an hour south. The nurse told the woman that as it was her first child, an hour shouldn't inconvenience her.
But things took a turn for the dramatic halfway to Nyköping.
"I felt the baby was on the way... I screamed 'The baby's coming, the baby's coming!' but my guy didn't believe me. But there was nothing we could do about it," she told the paper.
The baby was then delivered without complication by the woman's fiancé.
While grateful for a healthy boy, the family were left with a bitter taste in their mouth when it came to Stockholm health care.
"This was an emergency. They should have prioritized it. I'm worried how this could play out for other families," the new father told Aftonbladet.
Healthcare is managed at county level in Sweden, rather than by the state or the municipality.
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