Newborn baby critical after nurse put her down next to electric heater
Angry parents are taking legal action after nurses allegedly left their newborn baby resting against a heater where she was so badly burned she almost died.
The baby girl Zeynep was left fighting for her life in intensive care for 18 days after staff were accused of laying her against an electric heater at a hospital in Konya province, central Turkey.
Staff allegedly ignored the baby’s screams, thinking that she was simply crying.
Zeynep has finally been released from hospital and allowed to return home, but her family is furious.
“I want the ones in charge to be punished,” father Abdullah Ergun said.
“A nurse had realised what happened and informed the doctor, but despite that the doctor had told her ‘I know what I am doing, and you should mind your own business’.”
He said that when he turned up at the hospital after hearing about the injury, the dean of the medical facility told him ‘you may lose your child, be prepared for the worst’.
The family said that the hospital staff had not even admitted what had happened, and handed over the badly burned baby to her aunt.
The aunt noticed a severe rash and damaged skin on the tiny child’s back and the baby was rushed to the intensive care unit after medics examined her.
The family claims Zeynep has been left with horrific scars that are unlikely to heal, in spite of plastic surgery and want compensation for emotional distress.
“After they burnt my child they took her from me, I couldn’t see her for three days, she stayed 18 days in intensive care,” Mother Ozlem Ergun said.
“I couldn’t breastfeed my child.
“She was crying constantly from the pain and couldn’t have my milk.
“We were at her side but we couldn’t do much more than constantly move her onto her side so she was not lying on the burns.”
As well as a civil case the family also complained to police, who confirmed there is a criminal investigation against the Necmettin Erbakan University Meram Medicine Faculty Hospital where the mother gave birth to her third child.
Hospital management has declined to comment while the investigation is ongoing.
With Australscope
