Baby dies after boarding house birth
‘‘It’s so sad at the minute, what Amy’s going through, but we are going to make sure she’s going to be around for a long time.’’
Melanie Mcvey said last night’s celebration was a blessing.
‘‘With Amy’s illness, it was just, oh my god, I’ve missed out on all these years... I feel really blessed.
‘‘We’re going to make the most of our time together, and this time we’re not going to lose contact.’’ A nEWBORN baby has died after emergency services were called to one of Auckland’s accommodation-of-last-resort boarding houses.
Police are treating the boy’s death as suspicious, though Detective Inspector Gary Lendrum said there were still ‘‘a number of inquiries to make’’.
The baby was taken to the Starship children’s hospital from the Oceanic Lodge in a critical condition on May 23 and died there three days later, Lendrum said.
News of the death comes after Sunday News last week revealed the Third World conditions of some New Zealand boarding houses and the plight of 18-month-old girl, Julia Alatina, whose family lived in a tiny, cramped room.
The lodge’s owner, Irwin Zhao, said he didn’t know the circumstances around the baby’s death, but that it was ‘‘very sad’’.
Zhao said ‘‘more than 30’’ children lived at the 36-room complex in Favona when he bought it in October last year. Now around 10 of the 50 tenants are kids.
He said he had refused to let new families move in since taking over, and that he was working to find alternative accommodation for the original tenants with children.
‘‘Boarding houses are not good places for children to be because the rooms are too small,’’ he said.
The only reason children were still at the lodge was because there was nowhere else for them to go, he added. He said the baby that died had been born on the premises.
Zhao said the Government needed to give more support to boarding house families and help get them into safer homes.
The Oceanic Lodge is a sprawling rectangular complex surrounding a well-trimmed lawn with a trampoline in the middle. Rooms open onto the lawn or into hallways leading to the shared kitchen. Some had prams and plastic baby baths outside them. The buildings were shabby but clean.
There was a sombre atmosphere at the lodge on Friday. Its site manager said residents had been ‘‘distressed’’ by the ongoing police investigation into the baby’s recent death. She said his parents still lived there and were grieving.
The Salvation Army’s Major Pam Waugh said her organisation tried to avoid referring families to any boarding house, for safety reasons.
‘‘We recognise that children need a safe, friendly, warm, dry environment with spaces to play and just be kids – that is not generally available in boarding houses,’’ she said.
Residents often suffer from substance abuse and mental disorders, many have recently been released from prison, and multiple family members tend to squish into a small room, or even a bed.
Waugh said families in boarding houses ended up there ‘‘out of desperation’’.
Lendrum said police were waiting for the results of forensic testing to determine how the baby boy died at the Oceanic Lodge.
Boarding houses are not good places for children to be because the rooms are too small.’ IRWIN ZHAO