Hospital security: Doctors want ‘one-patient, one-attendant’ rule to avoid newborn abductions

YDA favours better security to avoid thefts

LAHORE: Hospital administrations should implement a ‘one-patient, one-attendant’ policy to suppress the incidents of kidnappings of newborns and thefts, doctors at several public hospitals say.

Numerous incidents of kidnapping of newborns have taken place recently at public hospitals in the city.

These include the kidnapping of a newborn from Lady Aitchison Hospital on October 4. Police have failed to trace the kidnappers despite having a video footage of the incident.

The doctors The Express Tribune spoke to said thefts at hospitals were rampant. They blamed poor security for this. They said virtually anybody could enter a hospital without being asked to establish their identity. “You often find a doctor complaining about a missing cell phone or purse. We have a police post but they have been unable to overcome the thefts,” a doctor at Mayo Hospital said.

“Security staff do not properly check those entering the hospital,” said the doctor who did not want to be named.

He called for security procedures followed at Civil Secretariat and the Inspector General’s Office where, according to him, visitors were not allowed entry without producing identity cards.

He said only one attendant per patient should be allowed at indoor departments.

A doctor from Jinnah Hospital said the situation at the hospital was better.

“Security measurements were improved after a baby was kidnapped from a nursery a couple of years ago. There is now a single entrance to the labour room and only one female attendant is allowed with a patient,” the doctor said. He said CCTV cameras had been installed at the hospital’s entrances.

“Footprints of a newborn are taken on a file before the baby is handed over to the family. Photocopies of the parents’ identity cards are also on the file. The baby is handed over to the attendants only in the presence of one of the parents,” he said.

He said no kidnapping had taken place at the hospital after the introduction of this system. He urged other hospitals to follow their practice.

Young Doctors’ Association’s (YDA) Punjab chapter legal affairs in charge Shabbir Chaudhry said the government had agreed in principle to implement the one-patient, one-attendant rule at hospitals but had not implemented the decision. “We were assured that the government would make the necessary laws and take steps to improve security at hospitals. However, this has not been happened.”

The Sir Ganga Ram Hospital medical superintendent said several measures had been taken to improve security and stop kidnapping of newborns from hospital nurseries.

Adviser to Chief Minister on Health Khwaja Salman Rafique said a letter had been written to hospitals instructing them to follow the new standard operating procedures.

“Hospitals have been asked to handover newborns to their parents only. Their signatures or thumb impressions will also be obtained on the file,” the adviser told The Express Tribune. He said parents would be issued gate passes which they would have to produce while taking newborns out of hospital wards.

“We have requested the Punjab Information Technology Board to make us a computerised system to record foot impressions of newborns,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 13^th, 2014.