The dust raised by the missing newborn at the Laquintinie hospital in Douala, in the Littoral Region of Cameroon, is yet to settle.
The case has brought to the fore similar incidents that have occurred in the past, highlighting what is clearly an endemic problem within Cameroon hospitals.
One such case is that of Vanessa Tchatchou, whose baby was stolen at the Yaounde Gyneco-Obstetric and Pediatric Hospital about 12 years ago.
Vanessa took to several media networks to recount her ordeal after news broke that a newborn was stolen again at the Douala Laquintinie Hospital.
She expressed shock at the lady whose child was stolen at the Laquintinie hospital for giving up on reclaiming her child after the Cameroon Minister of Public Health visited Douala.
The lady who never saw her child after giving birth says she is optimistic she will one day see her child.
“I think she should be 12 years old now. She is a grownup and will join us soon.” Vanessa said she was telling whoever is keeping her daughter, ” I don’t blame you because I was told that you could not have a child.”
“My child was stolen in 2011 at the gynecological hospital in Yaoundé,” she said.
Categorical that she knows who is keeping her child, Vanessa revealed that the director of the hospital offered to give her money and many other things, which she turned down.
“The director of the hospital offered to give me money, build a house for me, and fill my bank account,” she said, adding: “I refused and told myself, I will never sell a human being for money, and I will never betray Cameroonians.”
The reason behind the hospital director’s proposal of such gestures still begs for answers.
It should be recalled that on August 20, 2011, Vanessa saw her baby disappear shortly after delivery at the Gyneco-Obstetrics and Pediatrics Hospital of Ngousso in Yaoundé.
She was 17 years old at the time and a high school student from a poor background.
Her baby girl inexplicably disappeared between the delivery room and the incubator where she was to be placed.
When the case went viral, Issa Tchiroma Bakary, who was then Minister of Communication, said the child had died—an unsubstantiated claim given that the corpse was never produced.
Mimi Mefo Info
