Newborn found dumped in waste bin
Infant found amid hazardous medical waste at hospital
Three days after a baby girl was rescued from a stormwater drain pipe in Durban, another newborn was found dumped in a hazardous medical waste bin at a state hospital. According to the KwaZuluNatal health department, the six-day-old infant was stuffed into a pillow case and thrown into a “potentially hazardous medical waste bin” at King Edward VIII Hospital on Valentine’s Day.
A 20-year-old woman, understood to be the child’s mother, has been arrested. According to the health department statement, the baby, which was born premature at eight months, was being kept in an incubator.
“It is alleged that on the night of Thursday, February 14 2019, the baby’s 20-year-old mother, from KwaMashu, had been breast-feeding him in the nursery.
“While the nurse had gone into the neighbouring ward, the mother allegedly wrapped him up in linen saver, put him inside the pillow, tied it up, and threw him into bin.”
The mother, when questioned by a nurse, pleaded ignorance.
An intense search ensued throughout the hospital and the baby was eventually located, barely alive in the medical waste bin, which usually contains anything from used needles to blood or human tissue. The Sunday Times reported this week that some children’s rights activists believe baby safes and boxes are the key to keeping babies alive. Baby safes are steel boxes, mainly installed at children’s homes, which mothers can anonymously place their newborns into.
In a bid to save abandoned newborns, Door of Hope, a Johannesburg home that cares for abandoned babies, installed “the very first modern baby safe in 1999”.