Florida Couple ‘Very Upset’ After They Say Hospital Staff ‘Walked Out Of The Room’ During Daughter’s Birth

When Zaheer Ali and his wife Indira Ali checked into a hospital in Boynton Beach, Fla., to deliver their baby girl, they probably didn’t expect to perform the birth themselves. According to Zaheer Ali, who spoke with the Palm Beach Post, he and his wife were alone during the delivery after they say hospital staff abandoned them right before the birth.

“My wife was screaming,” he told the Palm Beach Post. “The nurse says, ‘You have to wait.’”

On Saturday, Indira began having contractions. The couple called their obstetrician, who arranged to meet them at Bethesda Hospital East.

Once the mother-to-be was checked into a delivery room, Indira Ali was put on Pitocin, a synthetic hormone that increases contractions, after her doctor felt the labor was slowing down. That’s when a patient down the hall needed an emergency Caesarean section and required the doctor’s attention. The doctor stopped the Pitocin drip and rushed off to perform the C-section. By that time, it was early Sunday morning.

Despite having been taken off Pitocin, Indira Ali was fully into labor. The baby was on its way.

“[They] walked out of the room, left us in there alone,” Zaheer told Local 10 News. “The baby came right there...It happened very quickly.”

Zaheer Ali said he pushed the call button several times. By the time nurses rushed into the room, it was time to cut the baby’s umbilical cord.

“It must have happened very rapidly, because I was only in the C-section for 30 minutes,” Dr. Elana Deutsch, the obstetrician who was scheduled to deliver the baby, told the Post. “The patient was obviously very upset. I was very upset. I think it was a new nurse, and I think she was nervous about being in the room alone.”

A spokesperson for the hospital said the mother and the baby are doing well. The hospital apologized to the family and put them in a VIP suite.

“The hospital is saying, ‘Sorry,’ but I just feel it’s wrong,” Zaheer said. “It’s a hospital. There are supposed to be nurses and midwives. A nurse should be there with you.”

According to ABC News, the hospital spokesperson later claimed there actually was a nurse in the room at the time Indira Ali’s baby was being delivered. The couple, however, sticks to their assertion that they were alone.