Newborn infant allegedly replaced with dead baby girl

MN Report

Karachi: A newborn baby boy was allegedly replaced with a dead baby girl at Paediatric Unit-II of Civil Hospital Karachi (CHK).

Accusing the staff of the hospital’s Paediatric Unit of replacing a newborn baby boy with a dead baby girl, family member and relatives of the newborn infant demanded justice from higher authorities of Sindh health department.

Ishtiaq, father of newborn infant, told newsmen that he has shifted his wife from Orangi Town to CHK on Jan 5 where she gave a birth to a baby boy the same day at the hospital’s Gynecology Unit-II. However, the newborn baby boy was shifted to Neonatal Intensive Care Unit of Paediatric Unit-II because of his critical condition.

He alleged that the staff of Paediatric Unit-II handed over a dead body of a baby girl on Jan 21, saying the baby expired during treatment.

However, CHK’s additional medical superintendent Dr Abdul Qadir Siddqui, when contacted, said that a premature baby girl born in Gynecology department’s operation theater was immediately shifted to Paediatric Unit due to her precious condition. He said OT staff could not immediately identify sex of the newborn baby girl and a communication gap between them and family members of the newborn infant created a wrong impression that the newborn baby was a boy.