TOKYO, Oct. 17 (UPI) -- A 32-year-old pregnant woman in Japan was denied treatment at 18 hospitals and died after delivering her baby.
In the incident in August, the Mainichi Shimbun reported the woman from Nara Prefecture, who was in advanced stage of pregnancy, was taken to a general hospital after she became unconscious. But after two hours there, a doctor at the hospital asked another facility to accept her but was turned down.
The second hospital then tried to call other institutions, all of which turned her down for reasons relating to availability of space, the report said.
The woman was accepted by the National Cardiovascular Center in Osaka, the 19th institution called by doctors, the report said. But it took an ambulance about one hour to transport her.
The newspaper reported doctors at the center found the woman had suffered a stroke and operated on her brain and delivered a baby boy through a Caesarean section. She died a week later.
Officials at the first hospital were quoted as saying a doctor had administered drugs to speed up delivery of the baby, fearing the woman might start having convulsions.
