Chennai: Newborn babies in government hospitals across Tamil Nadu will get hi-tech protection from November. The baby, mother, and the attender will get radio frequency identification tags that would raise an alarm and alert the police if the baby is taken out of its ward.
Dr. Narayana Babu, Dean of the Kilpauk Medical College Hospital said, “Even if any one of them goes away it would beep aloud and alert security and police as well. The location and route can be immediately traced and they can be stopped.” The step is taken after warning boards and even CCTV cameras failed to stop theft of babies from the hospitals. Forty-two newborns have gone missing from government hospitals since 2006, and no one has a clue as to what happened to at least 13 of them.
Muthu Manickam, who works as a lift operator, said “We pray that nobody else should suffer like us this way.” Samina Fathima, a young mother who delivered her baby at the Kilpauk Government Hospital, said “Now people would be more confident to come to government hospitals. This was a huge worry earlier.” Six lakh and seventy thousand babies are born in government hospitals in the state. With technology being put in place to check child theft from hospitals, authorities hope poor patients would feel safer soon.
