About a month or two ago, there were reports of a mother who complained about having given birth to a male child at the Princess Christian Maternity Hospital (PCMH) only for her to be shown a dead female child the next day by the nurses as her child.
Past Saturday at around 3pm, Bockarie Koroma alias Daddy and his wife went to the PCMH with their child who according to Bockarie (the father) was suffering from fever early that day.
Hawa Koroma (mother) explained that upon arrival at the Ola During Children Hospital at PCMH, a nurse came to her aid and took the child while telling her to wait outside. Another nurse she said told her “don’t worry your child will be okay, we are going to administer medication to her“.
She disclosed that thirty minutes later a nurse came out from the ward in sad mood accompanied by another nurse who urged her colleague to reveal the message to the mother that her child had died, adding that she had communicated the information to her husband who was not around.
According to the father of the child, he returned to the hospital later to collect the remains of their child for burial but was prevented by the nurses on duty who stated that the corpse will be released after twenty-four hours. Bockarie said “we were not even allowed to see the corpse.” He added that they were able to secure a death certificate for the child the same evening but they were still unable to get the corpse.
“We went to the hospital the following morning to collect the corps as agreed on Saturday evening, and to my greatest surprise when the corpse was handed over to us I noticed a large wound on the head of my deceased child.”
According to Bockarie he tried to get information from the nurses on duty on Sunday morning, but they refused to say a word to him stating that they were not on duty that night. He said that he reported the issue at the Eastern Police Station on Sunday where some police officers went to the scene to see but they met the Mortuary door closed at the PCMH.
He disclosed that one of the nurses was arrested but released by the police later Sunday night.
At the Eastern Police Station the crime officer Mr. Tucker, disclosed that the matter is under investigation and as a result they will not reveal any information to the press.
At the Ola During Children’s Hospital all efforts to seek information from senior officials proved futile as they said that the matter is now with the police.
At Eastern Police again yesterday, mid day when Bockarie and his wife and relatives went to the Eastern police station, they were informed that all the nurses that were on duty when their child died were in the station discussing with the police men, the relatives went mad and started using abusive languages and later, while this reporter was inside the station trying to find out what was going on, there was a heavy sound came from outside the police station and a moment later the police brought in two of the dead child’s relatives as suspects who allegedly threw stones that broke one of the window panes of the police station.
Upon that the police cautioned the nurses to wait inside the police station for security reasons and the father of the child was later invited for further investigation of the alleged stoning of the police station.
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