Police criminal investigation agents (Dicrim) recovered a kidnapped baby girl and arrested the lead suspect, Pamela Rosario. She is charged with abducting the newborn from the post-partum room at the Hospital Infantil San Lorenzo de los Mina in Santo Domingo East. The police shared a 30 second video when the woman is found in bed with the baby in her home in Los Castillos, Nagua, in Maria Trinidad Sanchez province. The baby still had the clothing of her original birth photo.
The baby was returned to the Los Minas public hospital where a DNA test is underway before returning the baby to her mom, Gerali Payano.
The mother had denounced that a woman attired in a nurse uniform had posed as a nurse and said she would take the baby to check her for fever and would return her in five minutes. The woman never returned. Another surveillance camera shows the woman leaving the hospital shortly after with a large bag.
The Police reported interviewing more than 10 persons, including physicians, nurses, security personnel, taxi drivers and the baby’s mother to locate the baby.
Preliminary reports indicate that the Dicrim agents had information regarding the case, including the version that the perpetrators of the abduction were part of a network.
“Based on this information and with the support of fieldwork, testimonies and other elements, the Dicrim officers carried out the raid on the aforementioned house,” said the Police in a press release.
The law enforcement agency said it is investigating the case in depth and will provide further details in due course.
The president of the Dominican Bar, Miguel Surun Hernandez, said that the finding of the baby was a setup and that the abduction was part of a gang that operated at the public hospital.
According to Agripina Nolasco, grandmother of the infant, an alleged nurse was at around 1am on Saturday morning in the post-partum area of the hospital. Nolasco told reporters from Listin Diario that the medical center’s staff say they did not know the woman, even when Geralys Payano, mother of the infant, says the woman was dressed as a nurse.
“She (the nurse) doesn’t appear, they say they don’t know her, but she was dressed as a nurse and had a medical badge,” said Maria Giron Martinez, the child’s great-grandmother.
The hospital told the mother that the baby would need to remain five more days at the hospital to ensure her identification and delivery to the rightful mother. The family seeks the baby be returned immediately and disputes the Police version of the recovery.
Another version is that the woman who abducted the baby at around 1am spent that evening at the house of a friend. The friend later read on social media about the abducted baby and informed the Police where to find the woman and the child.
Ana Leticia Martich, representative of the Ombudsman Office, visited the hospital on Tuesday, 24 January to follow up on the case.
Representatives of the nurses at the hospital said they could sue the lawyer Miguel Surun Hernandez for saying the nurses were accomplices. The nurses say they are not surveillance staff. Surun Hernandez, who is president of the Dominican Bar said: “There needs to be an end to the networks that abduct children at that maternity.”
Diario Libre reports that the director of the hospital, Dr. Leonardo Aquino suspects more people at the hospital are involved.
Meanwhile, senators expressed their concern and called for actions to ensure security of newborns in hospitals. Hato Mayor senator Cristóbal Venerado Castillo resubmitted a bill that would oblige private and public hospitals to instate security procedures, such as the placement of electronic bracelets on each newborn child while in the hospital; closed-circuit video cameras in the newborn area, and the monitoring of elevators, corridors, entrances and stairway exits 24 hours a day. The bill also would make it law for hospitals to establish a control that prohibits visitors in the newborn area. It proposes to strictly register all employees and personnel who attend to the children, as reported in Diario Libre.
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25 January 2023