Thorough investigation into missing twin saga a must
On Wednesday, we published on our page 14 a couple’s complaint that their twin baby had got missing at the 37 Military Hospital in Accra.
In our today’s issue, the 54-year-old father of the ‘missing child’, Daniel Naawu, says one Major Alfred Topper, a member of a team set up to investigate the matter, has informed him that the placenta extracted from the Caesarean session involving his wife, 38-year-old Audrey Agyapong, on Thursday, September 8, 2022, has been sent to Italy for further examinations.
We find this stunning and raises questions because we cannot fathom what prompted that decision in the first place.
We see this as an after-thought and a move to blind-fold the public to prevent them from expecting the unfolding of the real mystery surrounding the ‘missing twin’.
We see the committee trying to narrow the scope of the investigation to the examination of the placenta so that the result will sort of easily settle the matter.
Until those of us who are laymen can be convinced, we find the committee’s information to Mr Naawu as an attempt to conceal the truth, one which eventually will let culprits off the hook.
It is also a subtle way to rubbish all the scan results, including the one from the 37 Military Hospital itself, which confirmed that Ms Agyapong was carrying twins in her womb.
Pregnancy and related issues like the number of its weeks, scan and the results, and delivery are matters of science, not arts or literature in which conflicting occurrences are allowed.
It is public knowledge that the placenta is disposed of after the pregnant woman is delivered but for some reasons, it can be stored, usually at a cryobank, a clinic that collects and stores human tissue for later use.
However, such storage is made known to the woman from whom the placenta was extracted or in some cases, the woman in labour can request the storage.
Did the 37 Military Hospital inform Ms Agyapong on September 8 last year or prior to this Caesarean session date that her placenta was going to be stored and for what reason?
As things stand now, it is difficult to believe whether the placenta sent to Italy is really that of Ms Agyapong because until the publication of our story on Wednesday, no hospital authority had informed the couple of the examination of the placenta.
We think there must be a thorough examination because we live in a country where doctors and nurses steal and sell babies.
We have not forgotten the joint operation by the Economic and Organised Crime Office and the Ghana Medical and Dental Council in January 2021 that led to the arrest of 11 people suspected to be involved in the harvesting of babies and human trafficking in some health facilities in the Greater Accra Region, including two medical doctors, four nurses, two mothers, two social welfare officers and a traditional birth attendant.
We have not forgotten either some of the experiences shared by victims of baby stealing at hospitals following the operation.
In one of such narrations shared on Angel FM’s Anopa Bofo, a lady said, “My child was shown to me but I was later informed that he is dead.”
Miraculously, through a man of God, she got to know that the baby had been taken to India, and was later united with her.
