Nepal childbirth photo falsely shared as Noakhali hospital incident
A photo has been circulating on Facebook with the claim that a woman gave birth on the road after being turned away from Noakhali Government Hospital because she could not pay. However, a Dismislab fact-check found that the incident did not take place in Bangladesh. The photo shows a woman giving birth on a road in Nepal after she could not afford the fees for necessary health tests at a hospital there.
On September 15, a photo of a woman giving birth beside a road was posted from a Facebook profile with the caption, “A mother was turned away from Noakhali Government Hospital without receiving medical care because she could not pay, and eventually she was forced to give birth on the road due to labor pain.” The post criticized the country’s healthcare system. One commenter wrote, “Access to healthcare is the right of every person. Can the government avoid responsibility for depriving people of this right in this way?” Until the publication of this report, the post had received more than 2,000 reactions and had been shared 120 times. The photo was also found posted from multiple Facebook profiles.
To verify the photo, a reverse image search found a report published by Nepalese news outlet Himalaya TV on September 10. The photo attached to the report matches the one circulating on Facebook. According to the report, the incident took place at Gajendra Narayan Singh Hospital in Nepal’s Saptari district. A pregnant woman there left the hospital after she could not afford the cost of necessary health tests, including a blood test. She later began experiencing labor pains and gave birth on the road.
A search using relevant keywords found multiple reports (1, 2, 3) about the incident. A report published by Nepalese news outlet The Kathmandu Post on September 10 said that the woman gave birth on a footpath outside Gajendra Narayan Singh Hospital in Nepal after she could not afford the fee for health tests.
In other words, a photo of a woman giving birth on a road in Nepal is being circulated with the false claim that it shows an incident at Noakhali Government Hospital in Bangladesh.
