Mrs Lopez, a married mother of three, said that she and her husband were turned away from the Rural Health Center of the village of San Felipe Jalapa de Diaz by a nurse who said she was only eight months pregnant and ‘still not ready’ to deliver, even though the woman was reportedly fully dilated.
The couple, who are Mazatecs and do not speak Spanish, could not understand much of what the nurse was telling them beyond the word ‘no,’ so they went outside. Addressing the controversy later, the nurses blamed the incident on the language barrier and claimed that they did not have enough staff on hand to treat the woman due to a partial work stoppage.
