Thursday, 20 February 2014

Commotion in hospital over newborn’s missing placenta

 Falilat  and  Kayode

The father of a newborn baby, Kayode Alatise, caused a stir at the Otunba Tunwase National Paediatric Centre, Ijebu-Ode, Ogun State, on Wednesday over the alleged “disappearance” of his baby’s placenta.


Alatise alleged that the hospital management told him on Monday when his wife, Falilat, delivered their first baby that the placenta was missing.

He caused commotion as he threatened doctors and nurses at the centre located along the Sagamu-Benin Expressway.

The father of the baby insisted that neither him nor his wife was given the baby’s placenta, adding he rejected the placenta the hospital later attempted to return to him because he was not sure it was actually his baby’s own.

He said, “We were referred to this hospital, and when we got here they demanded N230,000 for caesarian section. I was told that if I did not pay N50,000 deposit, they would not commence surgery. I begged them that night, but they said they would not do the operation until I paid. Before I got the money, it was already 8am.

“After the operation, my wife asked me if I had collected the placenta, but I told her no. The nurses and the ward security now came to tell me that they saw me when I went to the surgery room to take the placenta.

“After I  reported the matter to the police, they now called me to say that they had found the placenta. But how am I sure that that is my baby’s placenta.  They told me on Monday that the placenta had got lost.”

The Deputy Medical Director and Consultant Gynaecologist/Obstetrician, Dr. Oladayo Ogunlaja, who took delivery of the baby, denied the allegation that any placenta got missing.

Ogunlaja said the placenta was only mistakenly taken into the hospital’s laundry by the cleaning attendant who cleared out the Operating Room after Alatise’s wife was delivered of the baby.

He added that if Alatise was not sure that the placenta given to him was his baby’s, he could do a scientific test to prove its genuineness.

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