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Hope sgp wont be the same .....

More HCMC babies abandoned at birth
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A nurse at the Tu Du Obstetrics Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City on Wednesday takes care of a girl (L) with limb defects abandoned by her mother the same day and a boy with Osteogenesis Imperfecta abandoned on April 24, 2009
The southern hub lacks the facilities needed to cope with a rising tide of unwanted newborns.


Ho Chi Minh City health centers are swamped with new orphans left behind by fleeing parents.

Ngo Minh Xuan, head of Tu Du Obstetrics Hospital’s Pediatrics and Newborn Department, said 40 babies had been abandoned at the hospital in the first three months of the year.

He said the number was troubling as only 120 babies were left behind in all of last year.

Pham Thi Loan, who has worked as a midwife at Tu Du in District 1 for more than 25 years, said teenage mothers – usually around 13-14 years old – often leave their children behind after giving birth.

“Many teen mothers disappear a couple of hours after giving birth without even seeing their babies,” Loan said. “Some parents leave their babies in front of the hospital as they leave.”

Xuan said the reasons for abandonment were numerous: some parents feel they’re too poor to raise children, others don’t want sick or deformed babies, and some single mothers fear social stigma.

He said one recent mother had left behind one of two twins because it had hepatitis B and respiratory problems.

Another mother left behind a baby with hydrocephalus four months ago. The woman had said she would return for the child but hasn’t been heard from since.

Some 20 kids have been abandoned at Hung Vuong Hospital in District 5 this year, while the Obstetrics Department at University Medical Center in Tan Binh District saw 30 abandoned children last year compared to 20 a year earlier.

Department head Dr. Nguyen Thi Thanh Ha said the center recently admitted a 26-year-old woman who came to the hospital without money while she was in labor.

“We took care of her and the baby for free. But two days later, the mother left without a word,” she said.

Lien, a nurse at a clinic in District 7, said two workers from nearby industrial zones had recently abandoned their newborns at the clinic. Industrial zone laborers are often migrant workers.

Xuan said that all the health centers can do is care for the orphans until they weigh over 2.5 kilograms before turning them over to the city’s Department of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs.

The department then sends the babies to one of four local orphanages, he said.

But he said local hospitals don’t have enough beds, incubators and staff to care for so many babies before they are turned over to the orphanages.

He said each nurse cares for 10 infants and that his department’s 160 beds are currently home to 327 babies, including 30 that have been abandoned.

Loan from Tu Du said health centers only receive between VND185,000- 210,000 (US$10.40-11.81) per month for each baby in their care, while cases in need of special treatment and surgery can cost the hospital millions of dong each per month.

Source: Tien Phong