Reports have it that a yet-to-be-identified woman made away with a new-born baby boy at the postnatal unit of the Dalhatu Araf Specialist Hospital, Lafia on Tuesday 9 January 2024.
Speaking to newsmen, Mother of the one-day-old baby, Mrs Wosilat Suleiman said that she was delivered of the baby in the early hours of Tuesday through Caesarean Section.
Wosila stated that a relation who was looking after her brought in the strange woman she met in the unit to help stand in, in taking care of her and the baby while she left to pick something at home.
She lamented further, “My relation thought the woman had a patient at the ward and she trusted her to help us before she returned. The woman told me she wanted to bathe the baby and disappeared with him’’.
Wosila appealed to relevant authorities to help find her baby as she was still going through pains.
In a reaction to the incident, the hospital’s management expressed regret that the theft happened in spite of strict security measures put in place in the facility to protect patients and staff.
According to the hospital’s Acting Head of Obstetrics and Gynaecology Department, Dr Mohammed Salihu, said it was the first time such theft was witnessed in the hospital.
Mohammed added that Wosilat was delivered of the baby at about 3 a.m. and the baby was handed over to her relation before mother and child were transferred to the postnatal ward.
Salihu who promised that management of the hospital would review the CCTV footage in the hospital to arrest the culprit, described as unfortunate a situation where the relation of the patient entrusted a strange woman to look after her sister on account that she wanted to pick something from the house.
He said that the hospital management had reported the matter to the police and that investigations were on-going on the incident.
“Already the relation of the mother of the baby has been arrested and some of our staff on duty were invited by the police for questioning’’. He added.
