In a shocking incident, a 30-year-old tribal woman delivered a baby girl in an unused drain on the premises of a hospital on Friday after she was allegedly denied admission.

According to the woman’s relatives, the Saheed Laxman Nayak Medical College and Hospital at Koraput (Odisha) in India,  refused to admit her without the required medical documents, reports the ANI news agency.

The authorities later admitted the mother, identified as Daina Muduli, and her newborn to the hospital after she lay unattended for nearly an hour.

‘The child was shifted to the special neo-natal care unit and the mother was admitted to the general ward. Both the mother and child are stable,’ hospital superintendent Sitaram Mohapatra told ANI.

Daina Muduli, a resident of Janiguda village in Dasmantpur block, had come to the hospital in the district headquarter town on Thursday with her mother and sister to meet her husband Raghu Muduli, who had been admitted on Wednesday because of fever.

On Friday morning, Daina felt labour pains and visited the gynecology ward but the staff allegedly refused to admit her.

‘The staff refused to admit my daughter as we had not brought the required documents. Hence, my daughter gave birth in the drain,’ said Gouramani Muduli, Daina’s mother.

When contacted, Koraput chief district medical officer Lalit Mohan Rath denied the allegations, terming them ‘baseless’.

An investigation is underway.