Child swapping again in AP
DH News Service HYDERABAD, Oct 23
Two government hospitals in Andhra Pradesh are in the eye of storm over the
alleged swapping of male babies with female babies.
The aggrieved parents and the police are awaiting reports of the DNA
fingerprinting expected in a few days.
Padma of Narayanpuram village in Nalgonda district came to the Government
Maternity Hospital in Kothi here to deliver her child conceived after 13 years
of marriage. She insists that she was shown a male baby after her delivery but
the next day she was given a female child which was at least four days old since
the baby’s navel had healed.
She pointed out that the baby was taken away from her and returned only 24 hours
later. Besides the baby girl was dressed in a frock and had a scarf round her
head neither of which were theirs, she said.
However, the duty doctor insists that the baby was taken away as she had to be
treated for a respiratory problem and that Padma had not seen her child since
she was unconscious.
Padma’s mother-in-law who attended on Padma says she was shown a baby boy by
the duty doctor and that she would recognise the child if she saw him. Padma’s
husband Sailu insists that they would not leave the hospital until they were
given their baby boy.
Padma says she does not trust the DNA tests either because she believes that the
hospital staff who swapped her baby were capable of manufacturing false reports
too. “Let the government put me in jail... let them do anything. All I want is
my son for whom we waited for 13 years,” she said.
In a similar case in the Kakinada Government hospital in West Godavari district,
the district authorities acted promptly and ordered an enquiry into the
allegation of exchanging a male baby born to Subhadramma with a female baby.
They also suspended four staff who attended on the delivery on Monday. Blood
samples of the parents and the child in this case too have been sent for DNA
fingerprinting in Hyderabad.
Subhadramma came to the hospital in labour and before she could be admitted to
the hospital delivered the baby in the hospital corridor itself. Her family
members maintain they were shown a male child but after moving the mother and
baby into a ward they were given a female baby which they refused to accept.
Another woman too delivered around the same time in the hospital but details of
her delivery were not entered in the birth records register of the hospital.
DOCTORS’ NEGLECT: The family alleges that the duty doctor did not attend on
Subhadramma which she later claimed to have. However Subhadramma is looking
after the female baby saying it is her duty since her son was being taken care
of by somebody else.
Meanwhile, the nurses association which has resented the suspension of four
employees including nurses say the blame should rest on the midwife who
delivered the baby. Also the doctors did not do their duties of cutting of
umbilical cord and tying identification tags on the new borns.
In May last, in a sensational case, the police restored a baby boy to Latha
after three weeks of agony to the family. The police traced the woman who left
behind her baby girl and took away Latha’s son reportedly ‘by mistake’.
The “swapping” took place in the state’s largest maternity hospital, the
Government Maternity Hospital at Nayapul here. The police recovered the baby and
DNA tests confirmed that the boy was indeed Latha’s child. The other woman
took back her girl without a protest.
While women organisations alleged an organised “racket” was flourishing in
government-run hospitals in selling male children born to poor women from
villages, the police deny it.
[Deccan Herald, Friday, October 24, 2003]