The Johor State Health Department (JKNJ) will investigate in detail the incident of a woman who gave birth alone in the maternity ward of Sultan Ismail Hospital (HSI), here, last month.

Its director, Datuk Dr Aman on Wednesday, said the complaint received was well-founded and his party would take the necessary corrective action referring to the photos that went viral on social media recently. 

In the post, the woman states that she was COVID-19 positive while waiting to give birth to her child. The doctor recommended a C-section so, they came and got her ready for the operation.

The nurses then moved her to a separate labour room and after around 20 minutes she started to feel pain in her abdomen. 

After a while she felt water come out of her and saw that there was blood, she tried to call the nurse, but they ignored her. 

Then, she tried to move her leg slightly, but the sudden movement caused the baby to slide out of her onto her bed. The baby also almost fell off the bed, but she managed to use her legs to hold on to it. 

For the next 10 minutes she used whatever energy she had left to call out to the nurses for help. She said that she was completely ignored, and she could her them talking and laughing outside the room. 

Finally, she shouted as loud as she could saying "Nurse, Doctor, help me, my child is already out," for 3 times. That’s when a nurse came in and saw what had happened and called out to the other nurses. 

Datuk Dr Aman said the 35-year-old woman who was pregnant with her fourth child at a gestational age of 39 weeks, also had close contact to her husband who was COVID-19 positive.

“The patient was examined by a medical officer and found in the early stages of birth, before being admitted to the isolation room at HSI while waiting for the results of the COVID-19 screening test.

Dr Aman said, since the patient was positive for COVID-19, she had to be placed in a closed isolation room.

He said the patient's delivery process took place unexpectedly, which was earlier than the expected delivery period which was estimated at six hours.

"The patient gave birth alone and the baby was found in the patient's bed. The 'donning' process takes time before the help of the staff on duty can be given to the patients, "he said.

Commenting on the allegation that the patient heard the laughter of the hospital staff outside the isolation room, Dr Aman said it was most likely from the noise in the nearby delivery room which was performing a vacuum birth procedure.

"However, we will conduct a detailed investigation into this incident and take the necessary corrective action," he said.