Missing baby case: Children’s hospital staff end strike over police ‘harrasment’
Medical treatment finally resumed on Friday morning.
KARACHI:
Three-month-old Naresh suckled obliviously on his mother’s breast while his family waited frantically at the entrance of National Institute of Child Health (NICH) where hospital staff had boycotted their duties. Naresh suffers from heart disease and on Thursday he arrived at NICH with his family all the way from rain-wrecked Badin only to find the paramedics and nurses on strike that continued till Friday morning.
Naresh and his mother waited under a tree together with his grandparents outside the main hospital building. “If we had known that the situation in Karachi would be so bad, we wouldn’t have come here after so much difficulty,” lamented his grandfather, Morya. His grandmother, Lakshmi, said many other poor people like them had to suffer late into the night. The paramedic and nursing staff called the strike after they were allegedly harassed by police after a newborn went missing. It was not until Friday morning that the doctors and nurses attended to them and began treating the seriously ill child, said Naresh’s aunt, Keshi. “The doctors have told us to arrange for medicines worth Rs3,000 already,” she said.
Middle-aged Sister Yasmeen, one of the nurses leading Thursday’s protest, said that they had to take action after one of their colleagues was made the scapegoat in the missing baby case.
“All the nurses and staff work their heart caring for the children here,” she said, “but we are the ones who ended up being accused of being responsible for a missing newborn.”
They called the protest off only when police released the member of staff who had been taken to the police station to record a statement in the case. “All of us are now back on duty,” said Yasmeen. “We’ve been assured that none of us would be harassed.”
While most of the nurses and the paramedic staff had returned to their duties on Friday, they were still disgruntled with the way the case was handled by the hospital management.
The nurses, for their part, felt that the management was responsible for security and the security in charge deputed at the hospital should be held accountable as to how such an incident occurred when each floor has a designated security guard. They claimed that the closed-circuit television (CCTV) footage from the main entrance of the hospital can be easily used to catch the kidnapper.
NICH Director Professor Syed Jamal Raza termed the case ‘highly unusual’ and was quick to stress that this was first time that a child has gone missing from his premises. The professor, who was busy sharing details of the case with police officers at his office, denied that they were any lapses on the hospital management’s part.
“We deliver approximately 600 babies a month at this facility with an admission rate per day of at least 25 newborns,” he said.
However, in light of the incident, the professor said he has drawn up a plan to install CCTV cameras in the nursery section and monitor it round the clock. Deputy Health Secretary Dr Jamal Shiekh, who is part of the inquiry team, says that all aspects of the incident were being looked into closely. They have drawn up guidelines for hospitals to prevent a repeat of such cases in the future.
“The government is very serious about delving into this case and the on-going inquiry will bring about a structural change in the handling of newborns at hospitals,” said Sheikh. Police are still investigating.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 12th, 2011.
Three-month-old Naresh suckled obliviously on his mother’s breast while his family waited frantically at the entrance of National Institute of Child Health (NICH) where hospital staff had boycotted their duties. Naresh suffers from heart disease and on Thursday he arrived at NICH with his family all the way from rain-wrecked Badin only to find the paramedics and nurses on strike that continued till Friday morning.
Naresh and his mother waited under a tree together with his grandparents outside the main hospital building. “If we had known that the situation in Karachi would be so bad, we wouldn’t have come here after so much difficulty,” lamented his grandfather, Morya. His grandmother, Lakshmi, said many other poor people like them had to suffer late into the night. The paramedic and nursing staff called the strike after they were allegedly harassed by police after a newborn went missing. It was not until Friday morning that the doctors and nurses attended to them and began treating the seriously ill child, said Naresh’s aunt, Keshi. “The doctors have told us to arrange for medicines worth Rs3,000 already,” she said.
Middle-aged Sister Yasmeen, one of the nurses leading Thursday’s protest, said that they had to take action after one of their colleagues was made the scapegoat in the missing baby case.
“All the nurses and staff work their heart caring for the children here,” she said, “but we are the ones who ended up being accused of being responsible for a missing newborn.”
They called the protest off only when police released the member of staff who had been taken to the police station to record a statement in the case. “All of us are now back on duty,” said Yasmeen. “We’ve been assured that none of us would be harassed.”
While most of the nurses and the paramedic staff had returned to their duties on Friday, they were still disgruntled with the way the case was handled by the hospital management.
The nurses, for their part, felt that the management was responsible for security and the security in charge deputed at the hospital should be held accountable as to how such an incident occurred when each floor has a designated security guard. They claimed that the closed-circuit television (CCTV) footage from the main entrance of the hospital can be easily used to catch the kidnapper.
NICH Director Professor Syed Jamal Raza termed the case ‘highly unusual’ and was quick to stress that this was first time that a child has gone missing from his premises. The professor, who was busy sharing details of the case with police officers at his office, denied that they were any lapses on the hospital management’s part.
“We deliver approximately 600 babies a month at this facility with an admission rate per day of at least 25 newborns,” he said.
However, in light of the incident, the professor said he has drawn up a plan to install CCTV cameras in the nursery section and monitor it round the clock. Deputy Health Secretary Dr Jamal Shiekh, who is part of the inquiry team, says that all aspects of the incident were being looked into closely. They have drawn up guidelines for hospitals to prevent a repeat of such cases in the future.
“The government is very serious about delving into this case and the on-going inquiry will bring about a structural change in the handling of newborns at hospitals,” said Sheikh. Police are still investigating.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 12th, 2011.