China hospital disposes of live baby | Look At Vietnam - Vietnam news daily update

China hospital disposes of live baby

November 7, 2011 about International

Following the discovery, the newborn was rushed to intensive care where he remains in a stable condition.


Health authorities in south China said Friday they were investigating a hospital medical team for mistakenly diagnosing a stillbirth and disposing of a baby that was alive.
The probe is taking place at the Nanhai Red Cross Hospital in the Guangdong provincial city of Foshan where the incident occurred on October 26, the Nanhai district health bureau said in a statement faxed to AFP.
According to the statement, Liu Dongmei — eight months pregnant — had been rushed to the hospital with internal bleeding and stomach cramps.
She later had an emergency birth, but the baby was neither breathing nor crying after leaving the womb and its skin had turned purple, it said.
Believing it was dead, the medical team disposed of the child but did not follow proper hospital procedures, the statement added.
The Foshan News, a local website, reported that when Liu’s sister-in-law asked to see the body around 30 minutes after birth, she was handed a yellow plastic bag containing the infant and found it was still alive.
“I opened the plastic bag and saw the baby’s hands and feet moving, the stomach was going up and down and air bubbles were coming out of his mouth,” the paper quoted her as saying.
She was further shocked when she saw the baby was a boy — not a girl as the family had been told, it said.
According to the Foshan News, nurses had told the family the child was a girl in an effort to blunt the blow of its death.
In China, baby boys are often viewed as more precious than girls, as many families can have only one child as part of the nation’s population policy and desire a male heir.
Following the discovery, the newborn was rushed to intensive care where he remains in a stable condition.
Officials at the hospital refused to comment on the incident when contacted by AFP.
China’s healthcare system — once widely praised for improving the health of millions — is now panned as costly, underfunded and providing shoddy treatment, especially in poorer regions.
Liu and her husband are seeking to sue the hospital for 300,000 yuan ($45,000), the Beijing News said.
The head of the maternity ward, a doctor and two nurses have been suspended pending the results of the investigation, it added.

AFP

36 dead, villages 'wiped out' in Samoa quake, tsunami

A huge 8.0-magnitude earthquake and tsunami hit the remote Pacific islands of Samoa and American Samoa, killing at least 36 and wiping out entire villages, officials and witnesses said.

Buildings were toppled and thousands of people fled to higher ground after the offshore quake struck in the early morning, followed by giant waves, sweeping cars out to sea.

At least 14 people were reported to have died in American Samoa and another 14 in Samoa, the Red Cross said, warning the death toll was expected to rise.

One witness said the wall of water was up to 30 feet (nine metres) high, and a local journalist told AFP entire villages had been wiped out on Samoa's south and southwest coasts where thousands of people live.

Apia, capital of the independent state of Samoa, was evacuated as officials scrambled to get thousands of residents to higher ground.

Witnesses said cars were swept out to sea in American Samoa, where buildings were destroyed in what the US territory's Congress delegate said was a scene of "devastation". Related article: US scrambles response

The US Geological Survey said an 8.0-magnitude quake struck at 6:48 am (1748 GMT) at a depth of 18 kilometres (11 miles), 195 kilometres south of Apia.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre said waves of up to 1.57 metres (over five feet) had smashed into American Samoa. It issued a tsunami alert over a vast swathe of the Pacific, as far as Hawaii, which was later cancelled.

Two South Koreans were among the dead while another was missing, Seoul officials said, while Australia and New Zealand both made preparations to send emergency help. Related article: Australia aid

Mike Reynolds, superintendent of the National Park of American Samoa which is headquartered in the territory's capital Pago Pago, told colleagues in California there had been widescale destruction.

National Park Service spokeswoman Holly Bundock said she had spoken to Reynolds, who was sheltering under a coconut tree.

"Park staff when they are able to make cell phone calls are calling in to our offices," she said.

"They said five tsunami waves have hit the park visitor centre in Pago Pago. It would appear park offices and the visitor centre there have been destroyed. "One of the waves was about 30 feet high."

Samoan journalist Jona Tuiletufuga told AFP there was widespread destruction with possibly thousands of people left homeless on the island.

"We are getting reports of missing people in areas were damage is extensive on the south and southeast coasts," he told AFP. "Entire villages have been wiped out."

Tuiletufuga said there were up to 70 villages in the worst-hit area and each housed from 300-800 people.

A New Zealand tourist who called Radio New Zealand to appeal for help said he was looking over an area of destruction from high ground near Apia. Related article: New Zealand aid

"We clambered up a hill and one of the party has a broken leg. We just need help. There will be people in a great lot of need around here, it's flattened."

While information from the islands was patchy, New Zealand deputy high commissioner to Apia, David Dolphin, said most of the damage appeared to be centred on the southern coast where waves of six to eight metres were recorded.

"There are reports of some quite serious damage, at least five fatalities and quite a few reports of people missing," said Dolphin, who was on the north coast at the time.

"It was pretty scary but the house didn't appear to be falling apart so we just took what precautions we could and hunkered down," Dolphin said.

"There were windows rattling, light fittings swaying, a number of light things fell off tables and shelves," he added.

A series of powerful aftershocks rattled the South Pacific in the hours after the initial quake, which prompted Japan to issue a tsunami alert over 50 centimetre (20-inch) waves expected to hit the southern Ogasawara islands.

Several of the Earth's tectonic plates meet in South Pacific and violent geological activity is common. Large quakes with an under-ocean epicentre can trigger tsunamis that can have devastating effects.

In December 2004 an undersea earthquake off Indonesia's Sumatra set off a tsunami that killed more than 220,000 people around the Indian Ocean and laid waste to huge areas of coastline.

Kidnappers demand 5 million dollars for kidnapped ICRC staff | TopNews Law

Manila - Islamist militants holding captive three staff of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) are planning to demand at least 5 million dollars in ransom for their hostages' freedom, military sources said Sunday.
According to military intelligence sources, Swiss Andreas Notter, Italian Eugenio Vagni and Filipino Mary Jean Lacaba are being held in the jungles of Indanan town on Jolo island, 1,000 kilometres south of Manila.
The kidnappers, estimated to number 25, are led by rebel commander Albader Parad and Akmad Jumdail alias Dr. Abu Pula of the Islamist Abu Sayyaf group.
The sources said "Parad is planning to demand 5 million dollars while Dr. Abu is reportedly planning a still unknown political demand" for the safe release of the ICRC team, who were abducted on January 15.
The Philippine military officially declined to comment on the information or give updates about efforts to rescue the three abducted ICRC staff.
"We are suspending operational updates on the military's efforts on the kidnapping," said military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Ernesto Torres.
"This is being done to avoid the possibility of compromising our operations and unnecessarily risking the safety of the victims," he added.
Abdusakur Tan, governor of the Sulu province, which includes Jolo island, said he was heading a coordinating centre that was overseeing the hostage situation.
But he also refused to give out updates on the kidnapping.
"I cannot say at the moment because we have many plans and we don't want to reveal our actions," he said, when asked if the kidnappers have made contact or issued any demands.
Tan urged the ICRC not to negotiate directly with the kidnappers, saying this would be "costly."
On Saturday, the ICRC said the three staff had been able to call their office and told colleagues that they were unharmed.
The agency has declined to say if ransom has been demanded for the ICRC staff, who were in Jolo to oversee a water and sanitation project in the provincial jail when they were abducted.
Jean-Daniel Tauxe, head of the ICRC delegation in Manila, said the agency had no additional information about the whereabouts of the abducted staff or who is holding them.
"We are not in a position to comment further, since our main priority is ensuring that nothing jeopardizes their safety, but it goes without saying that their families, as well as their colleagues, are hoping for their safe and swift return," he said.
The al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf rebel group has been responsible for deadly terrorist attacks in the Philippines.
It is also notorious for high-profile kidnapping-for-ransom cases, including the abduction of 21 European tourists and Asian workers from a Malaysian resort island in 2000. The hostages were ransomed off for millions of dollars before they were freed months later. dpa