We must find the missing baby!

 Story so far…

An expectant 25year old Suweiba Abdul Mumin who resides in Aboabo, a suburb in the Ashanti Region with her Husband after what seems to be more than nine months went to the Okomfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) to deliver her baby only to deliver a still baby.

According to Nurses who aided her to deliver, Suweiba was informed about her baby’s death and was subsequently given the baby to identify its sex and to affirm its death to which she duly thumb -printed according to normal practice.

The baby was then wrapped away in a box with other still born babies after which she was dismissed to go home and later come back to the morgue to collect the dead body for burial. The family arrived afterwards only to find out that there was no baby either dead or alive and that was when the family of the sorrowful Suweiba and authorities of KATH realized that the baby and two other babies were not taken to the morgue which attracted a demonstration from an irate youth from the Aboabo Zongo in solidarity with Suweiba. 

According to Sources, a new male orderly only identified as Mormen, who is in the grips of the Police, took the baby away. Meanwhile, Kwame Frimpong, a Public Relations Officer of the Hospital, says orderlies are only supposed to be cleaning the wards and not disposing off babies or conveying them to the morgue. 

In the wake of the demonstration which resulted in a doctor and several other nurses being assaulted, the Ministry of Health has come out to issue an ultimatum for the hospital to produce the babies which has been condemned by the Ghana Medical Association.

CONSPIRACY THEORIES

According to informed sources I intimated with from the Hospital, when babies are born, they are placed on their mothers’ stomach for affirmation of its sex and state of health and if found to be alive, are placed in a box and similarly when babies die, they are tagged with the name of their mothers and placed into a bin to be taken away by the morgue men for identification and collection afterwards. 

Deductively, the morgue men went skiing in Alaska and left no other than the new male orderly at
post to man duties and when the much touted unkempt and drunken orderly was confronted as to where Suweiba’s baby was, he pointed out that he placed the box of baby in an incinerator to be burnt. But when they went to the incinerator, there was no charred baby which is a cause to worry because burnt bodies do not dissipate into thin air.

MATTERS ARISING

What is the state of security in the Okomfo Anokye Teaching Hospital such that no trace of the incident was captured on camera systems or by Eye-Witnesses? 

Where were the nurses who were supposed to be on duty and why would someone allow the orderly to pick the box of baby if that was not part of his job description?

Is there a breakdown in the structure of the Teaching Hospital which would be a faux pas for such an essential service provider considering the fact that a life saving profession such as theirs should be mindful of mistakes because of how fatal it can get when lives are involved.

If there was no charred body in the incinerator then chances are that the purported still baby has been taken away but how did that happen?

All odds may be for Mormen the orderly, but he couldn’t possibly walk into the ward where the box of baby was placed, whisk it past the nurses and the many activities that go on therein to successfully take the baby out of the hospital’s premises without being found out. Methinks so many people are involved.

If the spate of baby loss is to go by, then chances are that there is a baby stealing syndicate who only deny mothers with propensity to thumbprint their babies and this must not be tolerated. It discriminates against illiterate folks and considering the number of illiterate kinsmen that abounds, we have to gravely frown against it.

Has the Ghana Medical Association come out to condemn the Ministry of health for its 14days ultimatum directive for the Teaching Hospital to produce the baby simply because casualty befalls every work? 

People die every day without their bodies being found out so what is the big deal about the loss of a stillborn? 

Big deal is, there are modalities per the policies governing the entire working unit and in the foregoing where three babies are missing thus denying families of their joy of parenthood and the privilege of welcoming new members into their fold, thorough and independent investigations should be commissioned to get to the root of this gaffe.

It should beat your mind why state institutions commissioned to take care of people’s needs of which they implored to be employed takes things for granted as though they are doing us a favor. This is the time for every onlooker to get involved to drive this message home to everyone out there that it is time to do the right things right or be sanctioned.

And since it has become our call to watch each other’s back in the absence of these politically incorrect Human Rights Activists and the adhoc movements who like to tag themselves as Friends of this and that, we all have to with one accord sympathize with Suweiba and family because WE MUST FIND THE BABY!

And this is a call to all parents out there who knows the joy of parenthood and Suweiba’s shoe size even without wearing it and the rest of us who are yet to have babies. Let us all get involved!

Disclaimer: Images may not be the true representation of the Nurses involved in the story.

Follow the writer on twitter @vilejah