New accounts of missing babies are emerging after reports surfaced earlier this week of a couple who alleges Ridge Hospital lost their newborn baby.
On the Joy FM’s Super Morning Show last Friday, a caller named Julie recounted how she was allegedly tricked into signing a form, confirming she saw the body of her dead grandchild when she had not actually seen the body.
Julie says on July 12, 2008, her daughter gave birth to a healthy baby boy at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital. The following day, she says she received a phone call that the baby was placed on oxygen because they had to perform tests on his heart. Two days later, the doctors pronounced the baby dead. She says she hasn’t seen the body of her grandson since then.
“I did everything for them to show the baby to me but they said the baby was dead; I was shaking. I couldn’t stand it,” Julie disclosed.
Julie’s story is similar to that of John Gabulja’s, who says he is yet to see the body of his dead daughter, the older of twins his wife delivered last month at Ridge.
According to him, he scheduled a meeting with the doctors requesting his baby’s corpse. But the doctors refused to oblige. He was only advised to sign a document, stating that he had been counselled on the matter.
After several days with no answers, he says he went back to Ridge to inquire, but the doctors dodged his questions and attempted to divert his attention to the surviving twin, who was still living in an incubator.
“I don’t deal with dead bodies,” Gabulja said a doctor told him after requesting to see his deceased child.
But a Medical Director at Ridge, Emmanuel Sropenyo, has refuted the story.
“The father of the baby was invited by the staff who counselled [the couple], informed them and allowed them to see the baby,” Sropenyo said.
He continued, “After the death of the baby, we gave them options to transfer the baby from the morgue and allow them to perform their own burial services.
“They said they would come back to us with their final decision. For one month, we did not hear from them so we proceeded to take the baby from the morgue for the necessary protocols and procedures.”
However, on the Super Morning Show, Gabulja told Joy FM’s Animwaa Anim-Addo that Sropenyo’s story was inaccurate.
“They only told me that the baby was dead. No one has shown the body to me,” Gabulja said.
He continued, “From 16th May, I was in the hospital. Why didn’t they tell me? Are they telling me they didn’t know I was in the hospital?”
At the time of filing this report, Gabulja said he was yet to see the body of his deceased daughter.