Thiruvananthapuram, Sept. 23: Purported labour-room pictures of the delivery of triplets have found their way to WhatsApp, prompting the suspension of three government doctors and an anguished question from the high court how any woman could gather the courage to visit a hospital now.

As many as 20 pictures are suspected to have been leaked from the government hospital in Kerala, the state that runs the best public health care system in the country.

According to the woman, about 20 photos from the labour room were circulated on the mobile platform and some of them revealed her identity. One of the pictures showed a doctor holding the babies.

It has not yet been established who took the pictures and who leaked them. Acting on the complaint of the woman, the Kerala government today suspended three doctors.

Earlier in the day, Kerala High Court rejected the doctors’ application for interim bail and wondered how any woman could ever gather courage to visit a hospital for delivery if this was the state of affairs.

The doctors are absconding and the full anticipatory bail application is scheduled to come up in court on September 30.

The incident dates back to July 8 when the woman hailing from Kasargode district gave birth to triplets at the Payyanur Taluk Hospital in the neighbouring Kannur district in north Kerala.

Soon after, the snaps taken with a mobile phone appeared on WhatsApp.

Besides the three doctors — two gynaecologists and an anaesthetist — there were two nurses and two nursing assistants in the labour room.

The district medical officer has called for a further probe, saying the doctors could not escape accountability for what had happened in the labour room while they were in attendance. Payyanur police have registered a case.

This is the second “labour room” controversy to hit Kerala, though the first was with the consent of the mother and meant for a film.

In 2012, actress Shweta Menon had her live delivery video-graphed for a forthcoming movie. The furore then was kicked off by Speaker G. Karthikeyan who spoke his mind at a seminar on the ethics of news gathering, organised by the Kerala Union of Working Journalists.

Deviating from his written speech, the Speaker had said that “delivering a child is the most private and sacred moment of a woman’s life and recording and using it for a feature film is commercial exploitation. The concept that anything is saleable is western. Society should decide whether the film will be screened or not.”

He had also said the human rights of the unborn child were being violated in the matter. “It is absolute nonsense. It is only a money-making attempt,” he said chastising both the actress and acclaimed director Blessy.

The film, Kalimannu, explored the relations between a mother and her foetus. The film was cleared by the censor board, which gave it a U/A (universal/adult, which means parental guidance is needed) certificate, and failed to make a big impact on the box office.