The Eastern Cape Department of Health is calling on the
public to assist in tracking down a 30-year-old woman who abandoned her
three-month-old baby girl at Grey Hospital, Qonce, in March this year.
The woman, registered as Anelisa Moyeni in hospital
records, arrived at the hospital with the baby on the afternoon of March 16 in a critical condition.
On arrival in the hospital, she presented herself as a
single parent, she did not know the whereabouts of the infant’s father but
provided his name and contact number on hospital records as the next of
kin.
The child was admitted but passed away the same
evening in hospital.
The mother failed to produce any official documentation of the
child and claimed she had a home birth on December 21, 2021.
She further claimed that the following day after delivery
she took the child to Bhisho Hospital for examination, where she claimed to
have been given a Road to Health card.
Bhisho Hospital records do not reflect her visit to the
maternity ward, and that of obtaining a Road to Health card on December 22, 2021, as
she had claimed.
When health officials requested for the Road to Health card,
the woman said the card burnt in a shack and that she never applied for a birth
certificate for her deceased baby.
The following morning after the child’s death, Moyeni
approached the hospital mortuary and requested that the child be cremated and
left the hospital without any notification.
On March 22 the hospital noticed that the woman had
not come back to claim the body of the child.
Hospital officials made calls to all the contact numbers of
the relatives provided by the woman, including that of the said father of baby
reflecting on the register with no success.
In tracing the mother of the deceased on March 23, the hospital social workers visited the address she had provided and involved
the community leader of Tolofiyeni village, but she was not known in the
area.
It is at this point that the hospital involved the South
Africa Police Services in search of the woman. On March 24 the police
visited the address she had provided but also could not find her.
Both the facility and the police have done all the interventions
in tracking the whereabouts of the mother of the deceased baby girl without any
luck and requests the public’s assistance in finding her or any of her
relatives.
The woman is a tall lady, with intermediate structure,
coffee colour, was wearing a skirt, with long brown sleeve top, when she was
last seen at Grey Hospital.
Anyone with knowledge of the whereabouts of the woman is
urged to call the SAPS or Nomzingisi Mnyiphika, Grey hospital CEO on 060 563
1398.
The remains of the child are kept at Grey Hospital mortuary.
