Dubai: A Filipina woman was forced to give birth on an airplane last week and struggled to bury her newborn child days after the infant died in a hospital in India.
She was travelling to Philippines from Dubai when she developed labour pain onboard the flight.
Grace Alexandria, 40, gave birth to a baby girl on an Emirates flight while it entered Indian airspace last week, a report on the New Indian Express said Tuesday.
The flight made an emergency landing at the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport at Shamshabad for Alexandria to receive medical treatment at the airport hospital.
She was eventually rushed to the hospital's branch at Jubilee Hills, but her child, who was born prematurely, died later on.
Doctors stated that the child's poor health and premature birth contributed to her death.
Alexandria was unable to secure passage for her daughter's body back to the Philippines and settled for burying her child in a plot at a local church.
She eventually received help from William D. Dar, former director-general of International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), who referred her to Tourism Secretary B.Venkatesham.
The government of Telangana agreed to pay her hospital bills, which were reduced on humanitarian grounds.
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