The Management of the St. Luke Catholic hospital in Apam is appealing to the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social protection to come to its aid after the parents of a three-week-old baby who was born with a medical condition abandoned him.
Speaking to Citi News in an interview, Reverend Father Francis Oteng Domfeh, the Assistant Medical Director of the hospital explained that baby Godfred’s condition required that he was given oxygen to survive but his parents directed officials of the hospital to take off the oxygen citing financial reasons.
“The parents told me they didn’t want the baby anymore because of his medical condition and ask that the oxygen be taken off but as medical practitioners, we decided not to take the oxygen off and as result the parents have abandoned the baby at the hospital and have since not returned,” father Francis Oteng Domfeh said.
According to the Assistant Medical Director, Godfred’s condition is not getting better and needs proper care adding that Godfred would have recovered better if the mother was with him.
He said that efforts to get Godfred to be reunited with his family had proven futile.
“We have tried our best to get Godfred to be reunited with the parents but all has proven futile,” the assistant Medical Director added.
According to father Domfeh, parents of abandoned Godfred came to see him with the intention of convincing the hospital to discharge Godfred but upon interrogation, the mother of Godfred claimed she is a single parent and that the husband died in a galamsey pit.
“It turned out that the information Godfred’s mother gave me was wrong since the father was part of the delegation that came to see me to discharge the little boy,” he said.
“Clearly it was a premeditated idea by the parents to dump the baby at the hospital judging from all that they told the hospital,” the Roman Catholic father added.
According to the Assistant Medical Director, they went to the extent of visiting Godfred’s parents at Gomoa Dunkwa in a bid to convince the parents to accept the baby but that also fell on deaf ears as Godfred’s parents vehemently refused to accept him.
“We have contacted the Social Welfare Department at Apam to help us since Godfred’s condition is not getting any better,” he said.
Ibrahim Salifu, a staff nurse at the hospital told Citi News that efforts are being put in place to make sure little Godfred survives.
According to him, since the baby has no parents to give him breast milk, they feed him regularly to make sure he doesn’t lack anything.
“It is sometimes difficult because you can see clearly that this baby needs a mother’s love, he needs breast milk like any normal baby,” Ibrahim Salifu added.