‘How my baby was stolen from hospital bed’

Zainab, from Fallau village in Dawakin Kudu local government area of Kano State, was admitted at the Wudil General Hospital after she gave birth to twins at home with one stillborn. She was taken to the hospital after she lost a lot of blood. Although she begged to be treated as an outpatient so that […]

Zainab, from Fallau village in Dawakin Kudu local government area of Kano State, was admitted at the Wudil General Hospital after she gave birth to twins at home with one stillborn. She was taken to the hospital after she lost a lot of blood. Although she begged to be treated as an outpatient so that she could go back home, the doctor refused on the grounds that she needed a blood transfusion. Her husband was asked to get two bags of blood which he did by donating one himself and then buying the other.

 

Zainab said on the day when the child was stolen, she was having acute dysentery and had to sit on a plastic container near her bed from time to time to defecate. She could not go to the toilet because of her condition. She slept very early that. “When I woke up from sleep to defecate, I saw a woman on the empty bed that was close to my bed and I was not suspecting anything. I assumed she was a new patient admitted while I was asleep. I just got down from the bed and sat on the container that was serving as a toilet for me. As I was sitting on the container, there was a sudden blackout.”

Even after the blackout, Zainab was still sitting on the container. It was after she was through that she came back to the bed and to her greatest shock, she could not feel the presence of her son on the bed in the darkness. She felt all over the bed but realized the child was not there. “I raised alarm, saying whoever took my child should give him back to me. Hearing my cry, my aunty who was sleeping woke up and together we continued to cry asking after the baby. She then went to inform the staff about what had happened. As we were searching for the baby, we realized that the woman near my bed has disappeared. That was what made us to conclude that the baby was stolen.”

Zainab told Weekly Trust that the hospital could not help in any way and instead, they ended up accusing them of negligence and she wondered how they could be so accused. She observed that if anybody could be accused of negligence, it should be the hospital. At first, Zainab refused to leave the hospital but when it became apparent that there was nothing that would be done, she left.

Malam Alhassan Maikudi is Zainab’s husband. He is a peasant farmer. He said:  “I was surprised and disappointed when I heard the doctor over the radio saying it was negligence on our part because according to him, my wife’s aunty who was staying with her was the one who gave the suspected woman the child to hold for her so that she could go and buy medicine. How could he say so for God’s sake when all the medicine we were asked to buy I bought it myself and gave them before leaving the hospital?”

But Zainab’s aunt, Malama Kadijah Adamu, said if she had the means, she would have challenged the hospital authorities. “In fact, I had a fever that day and I slept early only to be woken up by Zainab that her child was missing.”

Zonal Director, Hospital Management Board, Gaya, Zone 5, Dr. Sa’idu Muhammad, said it was true that a child belonging to a patient in the hospital was stolen. “The information that got to us was that the suspect had spent the whole day with the victim and her aunt, helping them with the baby as both the patient and the care giver were not feeling fine. The intimacy they had with the woman made everyone to assume she was their relative.”

Muhammad added that immediately they got the information, they alerted the police and embarked on a massive search by locking the hospital gate. After the entire search, they could not see the suspect. He added that the blackout in the hospital at that critical time was as a result of an abnormal sound that was coming from the generator. They switched it off to forestall any unwanted happening.

Police Public Relations Officer, ASP Musa Majiya, said the police are aware of the case and are investigating. He called on people admitted at hospitals to be careful, as the issue of patients missing in hospitals is becoming a source of concern. It could be recalled that about two months ago, a patient was reported missing from a hospital bed at the Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital and up till now, his family are in the dark as to his whereabouts.