Uganda Police with sister security agencies in Bundibugyo district have kick-started a hunt for a yet-to-be-identified woman who is suspected to have stolen a newly born baby from the maternity ward at Bundibugyo main hospital, in western Uganda on Thursday morning.
The baby’s mother, Ms Daphne Kabugho, 24, a resident of Ngamba One village, Ngamba Sub County in Bundibugyo District told this publication, that after delivering her child at around 8 pm on Wednesday under normal conditions, a woman who had masqueraded as a nurse kept checking on her and the baby’s condition until 5 am on Thursday morning when she disappeared with the child.
“It was at around 5 am when a woman came to my hospital bed dressed in a nursing coat with a scarf on the head and asked me the sex of my child, I told her it was a boy, and she also asked me whether my child has been immunized I said yes, she went ahead and asked for how many kilograms he weighs I replied 2 .3, she then said my baby’s temperature was so high and went with my mother-in-law to take the child for a checkup,” Kabugho narrated.
Kabugho added that upon reaching the nurse who was on duty that night, the woman asked the nurse to examine the child’s temperature and the nurse told them to take the child to the neonatal unit.
“She then told my mother-in-law to come back and pick the baby’s birth card and it is at this process that she immediately disappeared with my child,” Kabugho added
The student nurse who was on night duty at the time of the incident said the suspected woman came to her pretending to be a caretaker carrying a child accompanied by another woman.
“She was putting on a lab coat and a scarf then me I didn’t recognise the lab coat by that time, it’s like when she could reach patients she could remove the scurf for them to recognize that she’s also a health worker,” the nursing student nurse who preferred anonymity said.
The Bundibugyo District Police Commander, Mr Aggrey Okum, said they are coordinating with the hospital administration to extract the CCTV footage of the suspect in a bid to identify and trace her.
“We have seen her in the CCTV footage of the hospital, the picture is not clear because the incident happened at night but our ICT experts will see what to do,” Okum said.
By press time, the hospital administrator, Mr Mugisa Francis Ndahura, was not readily available for a comment as he was still busy with police trying to extract the CCTV footage.
However, the father of the stolen child, Mr Geoffrey Kule, accused the hospital administration of negligence.
“I think this thief took advantage of the less manpower in the maternity ward because other patients were saying she was moving bed per bed checking the sex of their babies. It’s like she was looking for a boy child,” Kule said.
Mr Amos Kinyamunyu, one of the caretakers at the hospital said health service delivery at the facility is still lacking.
Story Credit: Daily Monitor