Posted: Daily Guide |Thursday, 03 February 2011
www.dailyguideghana.com
By Charles Takyi-Boadu
Police at Korle-Bu have arrested a 27 year old woman, Jacinta Oduro Kwarteng, for stealing and selling a two-week old baby.
Jacinta, a resident of Agege beach road in Accra, sold the baby for GH¢300.
Sergeant Josephine Opoku, the investigator told DAILY GUIDE that on Monday, January 31, 2011, the baby’s mother; 24-year old Millicent Williams had gone to the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra for a review.
She had by then been asked to go home and report on Thursday since the doctor was not available.
She approached Jacinta who was wearing a matron’s uniform seated behind the nurses’ desk at the Out Patient Department (OPD) at the Maternity Block to enable her to weigh the baby.
But even before she could ask her a question, Jacinta approached Millicent and demanded to know whether she could be of any assistance and the new mother told her she wanted her baby weighed.
Posing as a senior nurse, the suspect offered to help her to see a doctor in addition to accompanying Millicent to the central laboratory for her lab report.
As they walked to the car park of the Maternity Block, Jacinta convinced the nursing mother to wait while she (Jacinta) went back to the victim’s aunt, one Joyce Abaka, claiming that Millicent had asked her to come for the baby since she (Millicent) could not see the doctor without her.
Obviously not aware of her Jacinta’s ulterior motive, the woman handed over the baby to Jacinta, who took her away.
After waiting for a while without Jacinta showing up, Millicent decided to go for her baby from her aunt.
Upon reaching there, Millicent realized her aunt was not holding the baby. The aunt asked her niece whether she was not the one who instructed the nurse to come for the child.
That was when they both realized they had been swindled.
But all efforts to locate the woman and the stolen child proved unsuccessful since they were nowhere to be found in the entire hospital vicinity after security men had combed everywhere.
When the police managed to locate the baby-thief’s house along the beach road in Agege, a suburb of Accra on Monday, she had moved out.
The victim’s family however managed to locate her the following day in a house at Dansoman Last Stop and got some policemen to arrest her to the Korle-Bu police station, where a complaint had been lodged.
Upon interrogation, Jacinta said she sold the baby to a certain woman whose name she could not give for GH¢300.
But when she took the police to the buyer’s house, she was nowhere to be found.
The buyer who is currently at large is believed to be either hiding somewhere around Bubiashie, Accra or Asamankese in the Eastern region.
The police have since mounted a search for the buyer and asked members of the public to help them with any information that would lead to her arrest.
Meanwhile, management of the hospital has set up an ad-hoc committee to investigate the circumstances surrounding the incident.
Director of Medical Affairs, Professor Efua Hesse, confirmed this yesterday.