Kalpana Dhimal, 28, hanged herself at her house Tuesday evening and the infant breathed her last Wednesday morning. Kalpana had taken her daughter, born on August 1, to Birat Nursing Home in Biratnagar on August 5 after the baby stopped suckling.[break]
Doctors at the nursing home said the infant had a temperature of 105 degrees Fahrenheit and required artificial breathing support. Kalpana quietly took her daughter away after the nursing home said the daily cost would be Rs 1,700. She did not tell anybody else about her situation.
“I sent her away saying (BPKIHS) Dharan would be a little cheaper if she could not afford treatment here for her daughter. But she went home,” pediatrician at the nursing home Dr Hira Lal Sahni said. “We don´t have a ventilator. But with enough money the baby could have been saved,” Dr Sahni added. He said the infant had problems due to premature delivery and lack of proper post-natal care.
Dhimal´s husband Ram Bahadur said she committed suicide at a time when the family was mourning the death of his uncle who had passed away five days earlier. “She left when all of us were eating supper at the mourning venue and went to our house when there was no one there,” Ram Bahadur disclosed.
“I had myself spoon-fed the baby a little earlier. I found her (mother) dead a little while later,” Maya Rai, a neighbor, said. Rai said nobody paid attention when Kalpana left for her home, thinking she had gone to change the baby´s clothes. Ram Bahadur found her hanging in the house 10 minutes later.
Kalpana left a suicide note saying she had done what she had done for personal reasons. She has left behind another daughter, a 30-month-old, who is now facing hardship. Relatives said that after returning from the nursing home Kalpana looked depressed and worried about the fate of the infant. But she didn´t speak to anybody about it.
“I would have tried to line up the required money had she told me about the condition of her baby,” Ram Bahadur rued. The Dhimal couple made a living tilling other people´s land on 50 percent share-cropping basis. The family had just a thatched hut as property. “I was somehow making do tilling other people´s land with her help. I have no one to turn to for support now,” the devastated husband said.
Kalpana´s body was cremated later Wednesday after an autopsy at the Primary Health Center at Urlabari.
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