Taping baby’s mouth ‘corporal punishment’

Seven lapses were initially identified yesterday by an inter-agency panel looking into the case of baby Yohannes whose mouth was taped to hold a pacifier in place last May 9 in a private hospital.

The taping is a form of “corporal punishment”, said lawyer Dante Jadman of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) 7.

“The baby’s crying is a form of communication and means he needed something. Instead of attending to this, his mouth was taped and he couldn’t express himself anymore,” he said.

The nursery of the Cebu Puericulture Center and Maternity House Inc. was also undermanned that evening with only two nurses taking care of 26 babies or less than the standard ratio of one nurse to six infants for normal deliveries.

The use of a pacifier also runs contrary to a 1992 national law that requires hospitals to practice breast-feeding, Republic Act 7600.

These two points were raised by pediatrician Dr. Noemi Poca, a consultant of the regional child protection welfare council, who joined nine agencies in the fact-finding panel.

The panel was formed after public outrage was stirred by photos of baby Yohannes posted on Facebook showing his upper lip taped with adhesive. The child’s mother testified that a nurse told her the baby kept crying and was “noisy”. Later in the hearing, it was clarified that the tape was used to hold a pacifier that had fallen out of the child’s mouth.

After yesterday’s closed-door meeting, the panel will meet again to review their findings and come up with a resolution in 15 days, said Jadman of the CHR-7, who heads the fact-finding body.
The input of the Department of Health (DOH-7) still has to be submitted by Friday.

Parents of baby Yohannes announced last week that they would go to court and not wait for the inquiry’s findings, as they were frustrated with the maternity hospital’s persistent denials that their nurses or staff were responsible for taping the baby’s mouth.

Dr. Raida Varona, medical director, told the panel that the hospital follows the government’s breast-feeding policy but in “special cases” allows the use of a pacifier when an infant is premature or sick, as prescribed by a physician.

Varona, however, said none of the nurses were responsible for taping baby Yohannes’ mouth.
Two hearings were held where the parents faced Dr. Varona and hospital nurses. Since then, parents of four other “taped” babies have surfaced. Two of them submitted affidavits to the CHR-7.

Republic Act 7600 or the Rooming-In and Breast-feeding Act of 1992 makes no mention of the use of a pacifier when handling babies.

The law, however, says sick or premature infants whose conditions do not permit breast-feeding “as determined by physicians” are exempted from the law.

Agencies present yesterday were the DSWD-7, CHR-7, National Telecommunications, Women and Children Protection Desk of Cebu City Police Office, Department of Social Welfare and Services (DSWS) of Cebu City, and Department of Justice.

Absent were the DOH, the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) and Professional Regulatory Commission (PRC).

“We will meet again and review, and see if there are questions by the panel members. Then we will sign it and give copies to the parties, and present it to the media,” Jadman added.
They set a 15-day deadline for the resolution starting June 9.

Other hospital lapses were noted: The hospital lacked a written ‘Child Protection Policy’, which is required of any private or government establishment for maternal and child care.

“This requirement has not been popularized so we can’t really blame them completely. Our plan is to ask the Council Welfare for Children to capacitate them and teach other organizations to craft a policy,” said Grace Yana, social worker of the DSWD-7.

Under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of a Child, signed by the Philippines, the country is obliged to have a protection policy for children.

The sixth lapse was the nurse’s lack of immediate response when the mother complained about the plaster on her baby’s mouth

Lilibeth Llona, CHR-7 investigator, said the nurse Arianne Pacula should have attended to the concern right away.

Pacula, in her testimony last week, tearfully apologized for not getting back to baby Yohannes after telling the mother she would attend to her request to remove the tape.

Pacula said she forgot because she was busy attending to many other things.

A seventh lapse was that there was ‘no personnel to approach with the complaint’.

After taking photos of their baby, the parents went to the hospital’s information desk to raise their concern to two staffers.

The mother, Jasmine Badocdoc, said she was advised to save the photos and was assured the matter would be raised to the administration.

Llona said the matter should have been raised on the same day to hospital superiors but was not.