An Aussie backpacker who gave birth after a horror 80 hour labour in ‘the foothills of the Himalayas’ is pleading for government help to return to Australia after falling ill.
India Hodgkins, a 22-year-old backpacker from Brisbane, is showing ‘signs of liver failure’ and her newborn son Neo’s health has become ‘precarious’.
Ms Hodgkins’ fiance, Jordan Austin, who travelled 8,000km in six days to be with her, says the mother and baby are in a race against time and need a ‘bureaucratic wall’ to fall so they can get urgent medical help at home.
‘We need the Australian immigration department to recognise the urgency of our situation and allow us to come home now, not in three months,’ he wrote on GoFundMe.
Ms Hodgkins did not know she was pregnant before she went into labour while camping in a rice field in Rukum, a mountain district 280km west of Katmandu, Nepal.
Medical appointments in Australia failed to detect her pregnancy, so the young Brisbane barista went traveling.
India Hodgkins gave birth to baby Neo after a horror 80 hour labour that moved from a tent in a rice field to a forest bein ‘watched by monkeys’ then a barn, before finally getting to a tiny rural hospital. Pictured: Ms Hodgkins with Neo and Jordan Austin
Ms Hodgkins, a 22-year-old backpacker from Brisbane , is showing ‘signs of liver failure’ while her baby is also unwell. Mr Austin has pleaded with government authorities to relax requirements and issue the baby with a passport so they can get medical care quickly
Ms Hodgkins’s 80 hour ordeal began in a rice field in Rukum, Nepal in the foothills of the Himalayas (pictured)
After months of bloating and vomiting she became convinced she had a tropical disease that she couldn’t shake – until her waters suddenly broke at the end of September.
‘We thought everything from iron deficiency to gluten intolerance through to digestive issues and even water-borne bacteria, said Ms Hodgkins’ partner Jordan Austin.
Only when her waters broke did she realise the dramatic miscalculation she and her doctors had made.
Now Mr Austin is pleading for the Australian government to speed up approval of Neo’s Australian citizenship to the trio can get home to Queensland.
Mr Austin claimed staff at the Australian embassy in Kathmandu told he and India to apply for citizenship online for their baby.
But because Nepalese authorities issued a birth certificate without a name and the Australian government needs to the baby’s name on the document, the family is stuck in limbo.
‘My son Neo Dundalli Tal Austin is 14 days old at time of writing. We are currently in Kathmandu, Nepal and unable to return to Australia as [he] is without a passport,’ Mr Austin wrote.
That process can take three months, a wait that could be life-threatening for mother and son, whose condition has become ‘precarious’.
‘Since the birth both baby and mumma have had health complications,’ he said.
‘India is showing signs of liver failure and extremely low iron levels, beyond anaemic levels.
‘She totally lost her vision, blacking out for over 5 minutes and almost fainted.
Mr Austin said the couple face a ‘bureaucratic brick wall’ from the Australian government
‘Neo was born with severe jaundice and without any ultrasounds or knowledge of whether he was premature or not.’
But Mr Austin said the couple face a ‘bureaucratic brick wall’ before they can get on a plane to come home for the medical care they so desperately need.
‘The Australian Embassy in Kathmandu is largely indifferent to our situation,’ he said.
Ms Hodgkins’ epic and ‘intense’ three-day childbirth began when her waters broke while she was camping in a rice field in Rukum with 50 other people.
She tried to stay in her tent but when it became too hot, she walked slowly with friends to a nearby forest, where she she lay in agony, watched by ‘monkeys’, the Courier Mail reported.
She moved back to the rice field, then a nearby hotel, then a stranger’s barn, before being carried over a flooded river on a stretcher to reach a medical facility in Mangalsen.’
That is where Mr Austin finally reached her.
He received a text message that he was ‘going to be a dad’ from a friend with Ms Hodgkins while he was in Ravenshoe, far north Queensland.
He drove for 24 of the next 28 hours, sleeping in a tent beside a service station at one point, then needed three flights to reach Kathmandu, before taking two overnight bus trips to reach her.
Mr Austin travelled over 8,000km from far north Queensland to reach his fiance, India Hodgkins in Nepal, where had given birth
Mr Austin started a fundraiser to keep the young family ‘afloat’ financially while they wait for the Australian government to process the baby’s citizenship forms.
Ms Hodgkins parents have joined the couple in Nepal and the family is believed to have the ‘means’ to travel home, but want financial support for medical care while overseas.
A spokesperson for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said consular assistance was being provided to an Australian family in Nepal.
It declined to comment any further due to privacy obligations.
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