Jaslok Hospital offers to deliver Niketa Mehta's baby

Mumbai, Aug.5 : Mumbai's Jaslok Hospital on Tuesday offered to bear all expenses of Niketa's baby.

The decision was announced a day after the the Bombay High Court had dismissed Haresh and Niketa Mehta's plea to permit an abortion of their 25-week-old foetus with a complete congenital heart blockage and malpositioned arteries that could, doctors say, require a pacemaker implantation soon after birth.

It was not immediately clear whether the hospital would initiate a one-time expense or bear the expenses through the years.

It maybe recalled that a division bench comprising Justices R M S Khandeparkar and Amjad Sayed held that the couple and a gynaecologist Dr Nikhil Datar, who had petitioned the court against the prevailing law, had failed to make out a case to show that the child once born faced a substantial risk of severe physical or mental disability.

The bench said that the couple and doctors could not establish grounds fit enough for the court to step in and make an exception for them by exercising its extraordinary jusrisdiction. The High Court relied on the J J Hospital committee's additional report submitted on Monday which totally contradicted its earlier finding.

ANI