Mexican woman gives birth outside clinic after being turned away

A photograph of an indigenous woman in Mexico giving birth outside a clinic, where she was denied help, has led to the suspension of the health centre's director.

Irma Lopez and her husband were turned away from the centre by a nurse - who said she was only eight months pregnant and "still not ready" to deliver.

The nurse told her to go outside and walk, and said a doctor could check her in the morning, Lopez said. But an hour and a half later, her waters broke, and Lopez gave birth to a son, her third child, while grabbing the wall of a house next to the clinic.

“I didn’t want to deliver like this. It was so ugly and with so much pain,” she said, adding she was alone for the birth because her husband was trying to persuade the nurse to call for help.

The photograph has emerged in several newspapers, and was widely circulated on online.

It was taken by a witness to her ordeal at the Rural Health Centre in the south-east of the country.