The Hindu : Another newborn baby abandoned at KMCH

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Dec 27, 2002

Southern States

Southern States - Tamil Nadu-Chennai

Another newborn baby abandoned at KMCH

By K.Lakshmi

CHENNAI DEC. 26. Yet another newborn baby, a female, was found abandoned at the maternity ward of the Kilpauk Medical College Hospital (KMCH) on December 25. It was taken care of by the staff of the post-natal ward.

The incident has raised the twin problem of poverty-stricken families abandoning infants in the hospital, regardless of the sex of the baby, and the poor maintenance of hospital records.

This is the fifth infant to be abandoned at the hospital during the past six months and the fourth child during the past one week.

In the latest incident, a woman got admitted to the hospital on December 19 giving her name as Vijaya of Sunguvarchatram.

She gave birth to twin girls on December 20 and both had a low birth weight and were kept in incubators. However one of the infants died four days later "despite good medical attention," according to hospital sources.

Vijaya quietly left the hospital, deserting her baby when she was asked to take the body of the other baby to the mortuary for completion of legal procedures.

According to hospital sources, Vijaya had been alone from the time of admission and there were no relatives or personal attendants to assist her. "Only the ward boys were helping her and she ate food provided by the hospital. Some patients who took pity on Vijaya also shared their food", a patient in the ward said.

It took a couple of hours for the hospital authorities to realise that the mother had abandoned her child. "As the infant was in the incubator only when we began to search for the mother did we know she had left.

Initially we thought she had gone out to inform her relatives about the death of one of the infants. When she did not return till afternoon, we informed the police", a hospital staff said.

The hospital authorities are unable to insist that patients provide voter identity cards or ration cards as proof of address as invariably most patients required immediate medical attention, a doctor said.

"Already there are allegations of patients getting a hostile reception at government hospitals and if we insist on address proof before admission it could lead to an ugly situation", the doctor added.

The recent incident of asking the mother to carry the body of her child to the mortuary reportedly without the assistance of any hospital staff has also raised questions of the security measures being followed in the hospital.

The KMCH was at the centre of controversy a few months ago following the mix-up of two bodies in the mortuary and the wrong family completing the final rites for one.

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