{UAH} Baby reported dead, body vanishes at Kawempe hospital

Baby reported dead, body vanishes at Kawempe hospital

• November 17, 2017
• Written by Zurah Nakabugo

Immaculate Kyomugisha, 21, a resident of Kawanda Kirinyabijjo along Bombo road is in mourning.

Her newly-born baby girl mysteriously went missing at Kawempe general hospital.

"It all started on Saturday [November 11] night at 9pm, when I went to Kawempe hospital to give birth. Although I was in much pain, the nurses didn't seem bothered until my mother-in-law gave them Shs 40,000 and they took me to the labour ward," she said.

Kyomugisha said, after giving birth, the nurse showed her the baby's sex, but she didn't see her new born's face. Later, they told her that the baby was dead.

"The nurse asked for clothes to wrap the baby and took her to an unknown place. She later told my husband's mother to bring the kaveera (polythene bag) and gloves for doctors to clean me since I was bleeding so much and other women were waiting to use the same bed to deliver," she said.

Operated mothers in the postnatal ward at Kawempe hospital

"After cleaning me, the nurses, chased us from the labour ward on fourth floor and told us to go to the postnatal ward on fifth floor and wait there since the body had been taken to the mortuary."

"Since it was at night, they told us to claim for our body the following day. In the morning, at the mortuary, they told us our baby was not registered on the list of bodies which were kept there. We spent the whole day looking for my baby; they checked everywhere, but the baby was not seen," she said.

"Then my husband, Jonathan Mutebi, went to the hospital administration and reported the case but they seemed unbothered and instead started abusing us for disorganising the hospital and also ordered the security guards to chase us," she said.

"We reported a case at Kawempe police station SD Ref 55/13/11/2017 of the missing body of a baby, and the suspected nurse who helped my wife to deliver was arrested. We want her to tell us where she put the baby. I want my baby whether alive or dead and I bury her," Mutebi said.

"We can't accept the baby was dead yet he wasn't registered anywhere and the body wasn't available in the mortuary since Sunday when we claimed for it. So, where is my baby? " he asked.

Ruth Atwine, the O/C CID Kawempe police station, said Viola Namatovu, a student of Mulago Nursing School who assisted Kyomugisha to deliver has been arrested and her file is going to the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) to prefer charges as investigations continue.

"According to her statement, after delivering the baby, it wasn't breathing and that she told Kyomugisha the baby was dead, and showed it to her. The nurse later took the body to the weighing scale table where she forgot it and failed to register it. But at the same time the doctors called her to attend to other mothers who also wanted to deliver because there were few doctors since majority of them are on strike," she said.

"But our question is, who stole this dead baby and why? Another problem, there are no cameras in this labour ward which can tell us what happened exactly? Many people enter this labour ward and you can't know them, especially at this time of the strike when there are few doctors," Atwine said.

She said since the strike started last week, three cases of baby theft from Kawempe general hospital have been reported. One Harriet Nankya, a resident of Bwaise, was caught with a stolen child at the hospital gate.

Atwine said Nankya was detained upon arrest last Wednesday. Nankya is believed to have snatched the child when its mother went to the toilet and exchanged it with a doll.

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Gwokto La'Kitgum

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"Even a small dog can piss on a tall building" Jim Hightower

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