Irma Lopez could not wait any longer; the baby was coming. The mother of three was forced to squat and give birth to her son on the lawn of the hospital that refused to help her.

Lopez, 29, says that on Oct. 2, a health center in Mexico City center told her and her husband that she was "still not ready" to deliver her baby because she was only eight months pregnant. The nurse told Lopez to leave and that a doctor would check on her in the morning.

An hour and a half later Lopez's water broke. She held the outside wall of the hospital while she was in labor.

"I didn't want to deliver like this," Lopez told Associated Press. "It was so ugly and with so much pain."

Lopez was alone while she gave birth; her husband was still in the hospital pleading with the nurse.

A passerby took a photo of Lopez's ordeal and handed it over to the press. It ran in newspapers and on the cover of La Razón, a tabloid which shows the baby still connected to its umbilical cord and its mother.

On Wednesday, the Oaxaca government suspended Dr. Adrian Cruz, the hospital's director, while state and federal investigations are underway.

Dr. Cruz told Banderas News that the incident occurred "due to the lack of medical personnel because the doctor on morning duty arrives at 8:00 a.m., and the woman arrived at the clinic at 7:30."

According to Dr. Cruz, the nurse told Lopez to wait because the doctor had not yet arrived.

"But she was embarrassed that they saw that she was feeling discomfort, and she left the waiting room," Cruz said. "I think that labor began at that moment, which is why she gave birth outside the clinic."

Situations like this, however, are far too common in Mexico.

"The photo is giving visibility to a wider structural problem that occurs within indigenous communities: Women are not receiving proper care," Mayra Morales, Oaxaca representative for the national Network for Sexual and Reproductive Rights, told AP.

According to Mexico's census, one in five women in the state of Oaxaca failed to give birth in a hospital or clinic in 2011. Mexican women say that rural centers have limited operating hours and staff.

After the birth, Lopez and her son were declared healthy at a clinic and paid about $30 for prescriptions.

"I am naming him Salvador," Lopez said of the name which means "Savior" in English. "He really saved himself."

View the unfortunate photo of Salvador's birth here.

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