by ‘Jola Sotubo

A newborn baby in Lagos has lost her life after she was abandoned by her mother at birth and subsequently rejected by two hospitals.

The baby was reportedly found inside a carton around Great Aduke School, Victory Estate in Iba area of the state.

She was then taken to two hospitals who rejected her due to a lack of bed space, by the time she was admitted, it was too late.

Nigerian Eye reports:

It was gathered that the baby girl was discovered by a young man (names withheld) who had gone to inspect his building site in the estate.

According to him, “on getting to my site, I started hearing an unusual sound. I kept moving towards the direction of the sound. As I moved closer, I discovered a baby inside a carton soaked in blood, still attached to the placenta.

“Immediately I saw the baby I raised alarm and people gathered. A woman among the crowd carried the baby to her house to clean up while I reported my finding at the police station.”

It was gathered that the young mother allegedly took labour inducing drugs to terminate her seven-month-old pregnancy.

According to the source, when the pains became unbearable the girl’s friend, in the middle of the night, took her to the house of a nurse on the street, who refused to attend to her.

“However, her friend eventually took delivery of the baby at the roadside close to the nurse’s house,” the source said.

Recalling what possibly transpired in the night of the incident, one of the landlords adjacent to the scene of the delivery, who spoke on the condition of anonymity said: “That night at about 2 am, we couldn’t sleep as we heard voices calling on the nurse that lives in that building.

“The shout was so intense, disturbing the serenity of the community. It was dark, nobody could come out because of the activities of oil bunkerers.

“In the morning, I went outside only to find blood everywhere especially at the scene of the delivery but I was not sure of why there was so much blood everywhere until a man found a new born baby girl dumped at his site.”

According to one of the residents of the area, Iya Abosede, “The girl is from a good background. Sincerely, I do not know what went wrong. Although she tried as much as she could to hide the pregnancy, the entire community knew she was pregnant outside wedlock. But we didn’t know she was capable of abandoning the baby after birth.”

Police on patrol from Adolf Police post took the baby to El-Shadai Hospital for first aid.

The doctor at the hospital after administering first aid referred the baby to Igando General Hospital but she was not admitted for lack of bed space.

From there the police took the baby to Isolo General Hospital where she couldn’t also be admitted for the same reason.

At this point the baby needed life support to survive, so the police carried it to Mercy Hospital at Adeniji Adele, where she was finally admitted and placed in the incubator. Unfortunately it was too late and the baby died.