The case of the disappearing baby

Working as a nursing assistant on a paediatric ward 30 (long) years ago...

One baby I nursed on the ward was Iain. He suffered a brain trauma at birth which left him mentally and physically disabled. He required a lot of help with feeding and took a painfully long time to take his bottle; barely did he finish one feed than it would be time to start another. As Iain’s parents didn’t come often it usually fell to one of the ward staff to sit and coax him through each feed and whilst I had no aspirations to become a children’s nurse, I never minded landing this particular job; sitting quietly with Iain in his little side-room day, feeding and day-dreaming, the hours just sliding by from one meal to the next. Iain was with us for months and when I left he even 'came' to my leaving tea on the ward.

Another group of children who demanded a lot of emotional resource were the non- accidental injuries or ‘NAIs’. Periodically, a child would come in with unexplained bruising, a greenstick fracture of the forearm (twisted and snapped under a force such as when a child is swung around by the arm, for fun or in anger) or worse. Wherever intentional injury was suspected the social workers and police became involved and the child would be put under close observation. The procedures then were clearly focused on the child’s well-being and safety but the processes for ensuring these are much more rigorous now and suspicions more readily aroused. That aside, when a ten month old baby came in with a badly scalded bottom, the consultant paediatrician immediately suspected NAI. The little boy’s buttocks were bright red and the skin was blistered and raw; he cried constantly with the pain. His mother was from a traveler family who lived locally and she said she had accidently run the bath water too hot and his bottom had scalded as she sat him in the water. The consultant pointed out the perfectly round nature of the burn, the exact contour and size, he said, of a cooking ring on an electric hob, right down to the blistering concentric rings. He said it looked to him as though somebody had sat the baby straight on a hot hob and that, he said, was unlikely to have been an accident. The Mother looked sullen but did not deny it.  The baby's burn was dressed with paraffin gauze and he was given a strong analgesic for the pain. Eventually he settled with the help of some warm milk and was put in a cot in a side-room to rest.
 

At that time security in general hospitals was relatively low key and on the children’s ward the main concern was to prevent children leaving rather than to stop anyone coming in. Handles were placed high on the entrance doors to prevent any ambitious youngster reaching them and the doors were locked at night. Parents were allowed fairly free access particularly those of the very young or very sick children but other visitors were expected to adhere to the fixed times of the afternoon and evening visiting times. Parents of babies (usually the mother) often stayed overnight in the side-room on a z-bed, not very comfortable but it enabled them to be close by which was important for the well-being of both parent and child.

Several days later, as I sat on my supper break in the ground floor waiting area near the hospital shop, I noticed two members of this little baby’s family entering the ward. It was visiting time and there was a certain amount of movement in and out of the ward but I happened to notice the same two people leaving again not long afterward and remember thinking what a quick visit. When I returned to the ward shortly afterward it was to find that the baby had gone missing. I recalled that one of the baby’s visitors was carrying a blue hold-all and I realised with a sick feeling that I had watched them carry the baby out of the ward and right past where I was sitting. Security in those days may have been low key but the alert went out swiftly and the porters (who doubled as security) were out in the front car park in minutes. The family was just minutes away from driving off, the baby still in the zipped up hold-all but fortunately uninjured. He was put under a formal protection order and the family cautioned.

I often wonder what happened to that little boy. Nowadays of course access to paediatric wards is strictly controlled but what a field day the papers would have had with that one had they known………….

 Next week: At last, applying to be a student nurse