The leakage is in a little room at one end of the ward, which has 10 beds in all. It started one-and-a-half years ago, with water dribbling down into the room. For the last six months, water has not only been flooding the room, it has been seeping regularly into the main ward, workers complain.

The little room earlier housed HIV-positive patients, but it was shut down after leakage began. Now clothes have been stuffed under the connecting door to absorb water, but nurses say it's of no use.

Water leaks from an AC plant on the floor above, and following complaints from nearly 5 nurses and 12 workers six months ago, the Hospital Infection Committee looked into the matter.

A member of the panel said the water got infected as it stagnated inthe room and picked up bacteria in the hospital premises. This poses a danger to new-borns as well as their mothers, who have open wounds.

But M Bhattacharya, head of the obstetrics and gynaecology department, says infections won't spread because of the leakage. ``We closed down the room as soon as the leakage began. That has solved the problem,'' she said.

However, workers also complain they have no place to wash blood and amniotic fluid-stained clothes before they're sent off to the laundry. All they have is a tiny room attached to the ward, with a small sink and one tap. There's no hot water -- a strong disinfectant -- as the geyser hasn't been working for some time.

So clothes are washed in small bathrooms outside the ward, which are used by inmates and their kin and which have rats running all over the place. As there's no place to dry clothes either, workers make use of the washing-lines inside bathrooms and even the bathroom doors for this purpose. Sometimes, clothes are dried in the ward itself,a nurse said.

However, Dr Bhattacharya said: ``There's enough space for everything. Workers are just creating problems.'' In any case, she added, clothes are sent to the laundry afterwards.

The hospital's dean, Dr P M Pai, said the leakage wasn't much of a problem. ``Every old building is bound to have some leakage,'' she said, adding, ``We're looking into the problem and repair work has started.''

The limited budget also makes it difficult for the hospital to deal with these problems, the dean explained. But she said the hospital is planning to shift the maternity ward within a month. ``Shifting the oxygen chambers and other things will take time. Hence the delay,'' Dr Pai added.