Sick 4-Year-Old Girl Abandoned At Hospital

A four-year-old girl battling with cerebral palsy, which inhibits proper growth and movement of her body, has been abandoned at the Ifako-Ijaiye General Hospital, in Lagos.

According to Punch, the mum had sometime last year left the child with her grandmother, identified as Nike Owoyeni, and fled.

The grandmother took the girl to the hospital around December, 2014, where she was reportedly treated and discharged the same day.

After leaving the hospital, Owoyeni headed for the Ogba area of the state and dumped her granddaughter beside a parked truck. The child was said to have been seen by a resident, who took her back to the hospital.

It was said that neither the child’s mother nor the grandmother had shown up since she was admitted about seven months ago.

Efforts to reach Owoyeni, who claimed that she resided in the Alagbado area, had been futile as a phone number she gave at the hospital reportedly indicated ‘wrong number.’

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A senior official at the Social Welfare Department of the hospital, who identified herself only as Obilana, said the victim’s condition was very critical when she was brought, adding that the hospital management had been doing all it could to save her life.

She said, “She is suffering from cerebral palsy. She should be four or five years old, but looked extremely skinny. Her body was very stiff when she was brought here last year. But we have recorded some improvement. She also had a body odour, which has gone now. She has started looking fresh. We attend to her every day. She is fed through the straw in her mouth.”

A nurse, who spoke to our correspondent on condition of anonymity, said, “No matter how serious the ailment may be, dumping a child at a place or abandoning him/her in a hospital should never be an option.”