A visit by MiD DAY to Nowrosjee Wadia Maternity hospital, from where a baby was abducted on Wednesday, revealed that the most guidelines issued by Bombay High Court in 2009 have not been implemented. Cops have released sketches of the accused woman.
Bhoiwada police have released sketches of the lady, who abducted a day-old baby boy, from Nowrosjee Wadia Maternity hospital in Parel on Wednedsday.u00a0
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While the parents, Devdas and Jasmine Naik, are still in shock, management of the hospital says it is helpless as such an incident has never occurred before.
When MiD DAY visited the hospital, it was found that most of the guidelines issued by the Bombay High Court in 2009, following the abduction of a baby from Sion hospital,u00a0have not been implemented yet.
Background
Jasmine (28) underwent a Caesarean section on Tuesday around 8 pm and delivered a healthy baby boy weighing 2.5 kilograms. On Wednesday evening, Jasmine went for a walk inside the ward, accompanied by her mother, and within few seconds the kidnapper picked the baby from the bed and disappeared.
Court guidelines
While the medical director of the hospital claims that proposals for implementing the guidelines are in the pipeline, sources in the hospital allege that the management is least bothered about the welfare of the staff and patients.
The guidelines issued by the High court on May 6, 2009 are applicable to all Government/Semi Government/Corporate Hospitals as per the judgement. Though it has been over 3 years, management of Wadia hospital has failed to implement most of them.
Dr MJ Jussawala, Medical Director of the hospital, when questioned, said that there are sufficient staff members and security personnel at the hospital and the management is taking necessary steps to implement the court guidelines at the earliest.
He added, “Our guards regularly check passes of the visitors before they are allowed to enter but during the visiting hours the number of the relatives of the patients is too much to handle. We have about 500 patients in the hospital and it is impossible to check all theiru00a0relatives at the same time. We have also initiated an internal inquiry and are awaiting the reports.”
How it should be and how it is
The guidelines issued by Bombay High Court are in stark contrast with the situation in the hospital.
Guideline: CCTV cameras should cover all the entry and exit points as well as sensitive areas of the hospitals like neonatal and postnatal
wards and paediatric wards.
Reality: The management has not installed a single CCTV camera in the entire hospital building. Hence the police could not avail video footage of the kidnapper leaving the scene of the event.
Guideline: Security Guards must be present for all the 24 hours outside neonatal and postnatal wards and paediatric wards.
Reality: No security guards have been posted outside paediatric, neonatal and postnatal wards. These wards remain unmannedu00a0throughout the day. The hospital has only a total of four security guards on duty in a single shift of which two remain at the main entry gate, one patrols the entire building at regular intervals and one is posted at the casualty ward.
Guideline: Security Guards must check baggage of visitors who goes out.
Reality: Guards do not check baggage of the visitors entering and leaving the hospital building.
Guideline: Female Security Guards must be posted inside neonatal and postnatal wards and paediatric wards.
Reality: There are no female security guards posted inside or outside any wards.
Guideline: Important signs and boards must be put up at visible places to create awareness among the people and the messages on the boards must be in Hindi or Marathi.
Reality: No signs or boards have been put up in the hospital building to create awareness.
Sources say
Sources in the hospital state that earlier this month 3 security co-ordinators were fired from their posts without any intimation.
These co-ordinators used to patrol the hospital building in civil dress to avoid any untoward incident from occurring.
They also allege that there are several vacancies but there is no recruitment being done and this has overloaded the current staff with work andu00a0responsibilities.u00a0