{UAH} Mulago missing baby: no govt defence yet

Mulago missing baby: no govt defence yet

News

FRIDAY, 17 OCTOBER 2014 00:23

WRITTEN BY DERRICK KIYONGA

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Three weeks after Mulago hospital was sued over the disappearance of a baby girl newly delivered there, the attorney general is yet to file its defence.

Last month, Gorretti Kajumba and Samuel Egesa sued the attorney general, the executive director of Mulago hospital, and Doctor Fred Lubega, after their baby disappeared. The trio was given 15 days to respond, but by press time yesterday, they had not done so.

Failure to submit a defence could mean the case being decided against the government, unless court grants the respondents a grace period. Asked for the state's defence, the director of Civil Litigation, Cheborion Barishaki, said yesterday: "We are yet to put in our defence; hopefully we shall ask court to give us more time to file a response."

In the High court suit, the parents of the missing baby claim that as result of the negligent actions of the respondents, the baby was stolen from the hospital in December 2012.

Through Kinobe, Mutyaba and Turinawe Advocates, the couple claims on December 4,2012, Kajumba reportedly gave birth to a baby girl at Mulago. The baby reportedly cried before she was taken to the nursery by the midwives. When she came from the theatre, she could not see her child.

"That [the first] plaintiff, in excruciating pain, walked to the special care unit where the baby had been taken and sought to see her child and breastfeed her….But the nurse at the special care unit… told her to go back to the ward and get a form from the nurses to show that she had given birth," the plaint says.

The health workers later told Kajumba that her child had died on December 3, and she was discharged empty-handed. At home, Kajumba's relatives discovered that the hospital discharge form indicated that Kajumba had been discharged with her baby girl. On returning to Mulago, Kajumba was advised to check with the mortuary for her baby. 

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Gwokto La'Kitgum

"Even a small dog can piss on a tall Building", Jim Hightower

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