Mexico hospital head fired after woman gives birth on floor

PUEBLA, Mexico - A Mexican hospital director was fired Friday after a video of an woman giving birth on the waiting room floor was posted online, officials said.

The incident at the Women's Hospital in Tehuacan, in the state of Puebla, follows a wave of popular outrage unleashed when video of an indigenous woman gave birth alone on the lawn of a different hospital was posted online in early October.

The director of the government-run hospital in Tehuacan was fired "for failing to report in a timely fashion the incident, which occurred on September 7," the Puebla state government said in a statement.

Investigators opened the case when a video was posted on YouTube showing a pregnant woman having her baby in the hospital waiting room.

The recording shows that a nurse does not arrive to help until the final moments of delivery.

Tehuacan, population 275,000, is located some 220 kilometers (135 miles) southeast of Mexico City.

"The patient along with her baby were under observation without showing any signs of difficulty, and were eventually discharged," the statement read.

It added that authorities will "not tolerate" a failure to provide proper adequate services to people seeking medical aid.

Mexico's health ministry has launched an investigation into the case.

A similar incident occurred on October 2 when Irma Lopez, a native woman in Oaxaca state, gave birth in the yard of a government hospital in the small town of San Felipe Jalapa de Diaz. Hospital personnel turned her away because the doctor on duty had not yet arrived to work.

Footage of Lopez alone and crying with her child still connected by the umbilical cord sparked outrage when it circulated in social media.

The hospital director was suspended until the probe into the incident concludes.