Grand Bassa County – A baby of a 16-year-old girl, who was transferred from the Zondo Health Center to the Liberia Agriculture Company Hospital on March 14, has been reported missing prompting residents of the town to demand the whereabouts of the child.
The 16-year-old mother had spent two days at the hospital before the incident reportedly occurred.
On Tuesday morning, local of Zondo town, which is several miles outside the rubber plantation, stormed the Company’s health facility demanding answers about the missing toddler.
G. Nelson Gbotoe, a relative of the mother told FrontPageAfrica, “We took our daughter and her baby to the LAC hospital for treatment but on Monday morning we got a call that the baby got missing from the hospital”.
He explained that Mary Bacon, who is the mother of the child, left the baby on the hospital’s bed went to use the bathroom but when she returned the child could not be found on the bed.
“When our daughter [child’s Mother] asked the other patients for the child, the patients said that a man walked out with the child and they thought it was a family member of the mother,” Gbotoe said.
He said that it is impossible that an unknown person would have walked away with the child in the presence of the security guards at the Hospital’s gate.
“We will keep disturbing LAC until we see our baby alive because people being getting missing from this hospital and only their dead body can be found “.
He stressed that the government of Liberia have played deaf ears to the “evil deeds” that have happened on the LAC plantation.
Madam Victoria Harris, a certified midwife at the Zondoe Health Center, told reporters that she “delivered Mary Barcon on Friday, March 13, 2020, but her condition was not good because she was bleeding and the child was born depressed as well so the child was not sucking her breast for two days”.
She continued: “We fought to put the bleeding to stop but her blood was low and her eyes were still turning, so I decided to transfer them to LAC Hospital.”
Mrs. Harris asserted that the child spent two days at LAC Hospital before going missing.
“I am feeling very bad now because that little girl suffered for her child, and I really wanted her child and her to live and be happy that’s why I didn’t waste time to transfer them to LAC Hospital”.
Meanwhile, frantic efforts applied to reach the LAC management for comments on the situation proved futile as the company’s security guards prevented reporters from entering the plantation to report about the situation.
The Human Resource Manager of the Company told a reporter that the company’s action to ban the journalists was due to the Coronavirus outbreak.
When contacted the County Superintendent Janjay Baikpah promised to visit LAC plantation to get more details before commenting on the issue.
He, at the same time, called on the family to be patient as the county administration and the police have begun an investigation into the incident.
In 2019, Fayiah Kettor, 40, who was an employee of the Company, went missing while he was undergoing treatment at the same hospital. His lifeless body was later found a couple of meters away from the hospital compound.
That incident prompted protests as his family members demanded answers from the management of the company.
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