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Surabaya. A hospital in Indonesia's East Java has denied that it refused to allow a family to take home and bury the body of their newborn because the baby’s parents could not pay their bill.

Nurul Istiqoma gave birth to a girl at Waluyo Jati Kraksaan Hospital in Probolinggo, East Java, on Saturday.

The baby was born premature and had to undergo surgery for esophageal atresia, a congenital condition where the esophagus does not connect normally to the stomach.

The baby’s condition continued to deteriorate after the surgery and she died on Tuesday morning.

Nurul and her husband, Abdul Karim, told the Jakarta Globe that they were not allowed to take their daughter’s body home for burial.

“The hospital kept our baby because we couldn’t pay the bill,” Abdul said.

The total bill was Rp 1.95 million ($210) but Abdul only had Rp 950,000. He said that he promised to return and settle the remainder of the bill, but that the staff refused to budge.

Abdul and Nurul said the hospital only relented and allowed them to take the body about eight hours after their daughter had died. They said they paid Rp 950,000 and were required to leave Abdul’s driver’s license at the hospital as a guarantee they would return.

Waluyo Jati Kraksaan’s director, Sulis Astutik, however, denied the hospital had refused to release the body. She said hospital staff had been unable to contact the parents and they were not at the hospital when their daughter was pronounced dead.

“We didn’t take the baby hostage because they couldn’t pay the bill. We were waiting for the family to take the baby home,” Sulis said.

Cases of mothers and babies being prevented from leaving hospitals because of unpaid bills are not uncommon in Indonesia.

Indonesia Corruption Watch found in January this year that some hospitals continued to discriminate against low-income families who were entitled to free medical treatment.

“Among the findings, we discovered that some hospitals still charge patients or ask for a down payment even though they are Jamkesmas [state health insurance] cardholders,” said the watchdog’s public health researcher, Ratna Kusumaning sih.