Jos hospital to immortalize stolen, recovered baby

By Kingsley Chukwuka, Jos

The acting Chief Medical Officer of the Plateau Specialist Hospital, Dr. Philemon Golwa, has described the stolen three-day -old baby who has been recovered and handed over to her parents as a gift not only to her parents, but to the nation at large.

Dr. Golwa, who officially handed over the baby to her mother, Mary Chukwuebuka, on Monday in Jos, charged the parents to take proper care of the baby judging from the circumstances that she was abducted and later found.

The Daily Times reports that the management of Plateau Specialists Hospital had handed over the baby who was stolen over two weeks ago to her rightful parents with a promise to immortalise the baby and beef up security at the hospital to forestall a repeat of the incident.

It would be recalled that the baby was recovered five days ago, but was yet to be handed over to the parents and the hospital had said the baby was sick and needed to be given urgent medical attention.

However, according to Dr. Golwa, “today is a day of celebration of a life that was thought to be lost, but now has been found. On that faithful day, when we were told that this baby was missing, we were worried; we went to the police, they did their work and most of our staff here were interrogated and kept behind the counter, and we had to allow them to do their work.

“I was not sure of what to say throughout the period but God has made it this way that today, we are celebrating. Any baby that comes under such circumstances like these turn out to be a great person in the society.

“That is why we have to tell the whole world what is happening; we had a breakthrough last Thursday and the person that did the technical work of transferring the baby from here to another hospital has been nabbed and she admitted to her fault.

“The police are trying to demystify how the baby was taken from the ward and how she found her way to another hospital. For us here, we celebrate with the parents. We have seen our lapses; after this we are taking some measures to correct the abnormalities, the incident was very technical, we are going to reinforce some of the basic mechanism of security within the hospital.

“Not many people will be pleased, but you have to bear with us because we need to curtail ugly incidents like this in the future. For the mother, we will follow up and ensure her treatment is completed and we will be monitoring the progress of the baby from time to time. We are going to immortalize the baby and as part of our contribution, we have taking care of their bills, we don’t expect them to pay any bills again.”

Expressing her gratitude, the parents of the baby, Nwagod and Mary Chukuwebuka appreciated all those who stood by them to ensure the baby was recovered, saying they have decided to name the baby, Onyiyechi, God’s gift.