Breaking: Two midwives at Laquintinie hospital scapegoated, suspended to cover for hospital’s endemic failures

The Director of Laquintinie Hospital in Douala, Prof Noelle Essomba, has suspended two midwives who were involved in the disappearance of a newborn baby at the hospital last week.

In a recent communique, Essomba said the midwives, Fotso Kamga and Tchuendem Arlane, have been suspended.

They attended to Bell Esther Aurelie, a woman whose newborn baby disappeared from the hospital last Friday.

Aurelie told MMI she had not seen the baby since it was born on Friday, March 31.

In the same release, the Director ordered the arrest of an intern by the name Fonlon Dzelamonyuy, whom the institution claims must have disposed the baby in a septic tank.

The midwives earlier told Aurelie that her baby was born prematurely and it died at birth and was immediately disposed.

The narrative was publicly reinforced by a release published by the hospital director on Tuesday, April 4.

The family of the missing baby has kept insisting that Laquintinie Hospital must provide their baby whether dead or alive.

The suspension of the midwives and an intent has been described by critics as a strategy by the hospital administration to waylay the public and shift attention from the longstanding failures of the hospital.

By Amina Hilda