MPs On Saga Of Missing Babies

The Speaker of Parliament, Mr Edward Doe Adjaho, yesterday demanded that the Ministry of Health (MoH) furnish the House with the report on missing babies from the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH). He described the case as a serious one about which all should show concern, adding, "If our mothers, wives and sisters go to hospitals to deliver and cannot find their babies after delivery, then that is a serious matter. This House takes a serious view of this issue.� Mr Adjaho gave the directive after the Member of Parliament (MP) for Asawase, Alhaji Mohammed Muntaka Mubarak, had brought to the attention of the House the fact that a report had been released by the MoH and urged the Speaker to demand from the ministry the report on the investigations. �I direct that the Ministry of Health (MoH) provide this House with the findings on the matter for us to act appropriately,� Mr Adjaho said. Defence of MoH But while the Speaker of Parliament was demanding the report, the outgoing Minister of Health, Ms Sherry Ayittey, was defending the findings of the report when she took her turn at the meet-the-press series in Accra yesterday. She explained that there were three dimensions to the issue, namely, the professional, the administrative and the criminal parts, and indicated that the ministry had dealt with the first two. The third component, she added, was being handled by the police and the Attorney-General�s Department. Background The MoH has announced that it has received the final report on investigations into the controversial saga of missing babies that happened at the KATH earlier this year. Suweiba Mumin went to the KATH to deliver but lost the baby under very bizarre circumstances, leading to incensed Muslim youth seeking to know the whereabouts of the baby. The youth attacked doctors, nurses and other hospital staff members, demanding the remains of the infant for burial as the Islamic religion demanded. Suweiba insisted that the baby was alive when the midwives placed it on her, as is the practice. But hospital authorities could not produce the baby, dead or alive. As later events unfolded, the bodies of four other babies allegedly delivered stillborn could not be found, leading to public outcry and interesting conspiracy theories, prompting police investigations and necessitating the MoH to constitute a body to look into the matter to ascertain the truth. Muntaka's views Alhaji Muntaka said Parliament needed to demand the report from the ministry for scrutiny of the recommendations. The Asawase MP, from whose constituency Suweiba hails, was not intrigued by the fact that the supposedly comprehensive report submitted to the MoH, as announced by the ministry over the weekend, did not address the vexed issue of where the baby was. �We have to act appropriately because of the sensitive nature of this matter,� he said. Mr Adjaho requested that the Majority Leader, Mr Benjamin Bewa-Nyog Kunbuor, ensure that the report was made available to the House as soon as practicable and referred to the Health Committee for deliberation on the recommendations contained in it.