Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center in Cebu City is a general, tertiary medical center teaching/training medical facility owned by the Philippine government. (CDN FILE PHOTO)
- Fake nurse walks out of VSMMC with newborn boy and disappears
- Gov’t hospital offers cash reward to find baby, kidnapper
Have you seen this woman?
A case of baby theft has set off alarms over a security breach in the government-run Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center in Cebu City.
Authorities are looking for a young woman who walked out of the hospital at noon yesterday carrying a two-day-old baby in a blue blanket.
Images of the CCTV security camera capture an unidentified woman in white scrubs carrying baby Prince Nino Celadenia out of the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center after getting the newborn infant from his mother on the pretext of bringing him to the laboratory for an anti-dengue shot.
The parents of baby Prince Niño Celadenia said they handed their son to a “nurse” dressed in an all-white uniform.
However, VSMMC management said the woman, who was recorded on the hospital’s security camera video walking through the wards and out the exit with the baby in her arms, was not one of their staff.
The National Bureau of Investigation and Cebu City police have been called in to investigate.
VSMMC hospital chief Dr. Gerardo Aquino Jr. announced a cash reward of undetermined amount for anyone with information that would lead to the missing baby and the kidnapper.
It was not known whether the woman was really a medical worker.
Baby Prince was already with his 27-year-old mother Jayvee, at the Child Survival Center, a ward for newborns, when a woman in white scrubs approached her on the pretext of bringing the baby to the laboratory for an anti-dengue shot, according to the police.
The mother said she didn’t suspect anything amiss because the “nurse” wore an all-white uniform — loose pants and V-necked shirt commonly worn by medical personnel — and a face mask.
The baby’s father Jonathan said that his wife even accompanied the “nurse” to the laboratory room but waited outside since she was told that mothers were not allowed to go in.
The mother was shocked to see the “nurse” in white carrying the baby to the exit door on the way to the parking lot.
“She tried to chase the woman but was purportedly blocked by the guard,” said Senior Insp. Randy Caballes, chief of Police Sation 2. The parents are from Minglanilla town.
Nonoy Mongaya, VSMMC information officer, said management has turned over CCTV video footage to police and NBI investigators.
The first video clip shows a woman in all-white scrubs wearing a face mask and carrying baby Prince at the laboratory section.
Dr. Gerardo M. Aquino Jr.
A second video clip shows the same woman, this time without a face mask, bringing the baby in her arms and passing the billing section of the hospital.
A third video clip shows her, still carrying the baby, passing the cashier’s area and heading to the hospital exit near the trauma section.
The police report described the woman as fair skinned and four feet 11 inches tall.
Mongaya said this was the first case of baby theft in the government hospital, which is supervised by the Department of Health.
The baby was born last January 2, Saturday, and was ready for discharge on Monday, said Mongaya. The family was processing the Philhealth insurance benefits for childbirth when the infant was taken out surreptitiously.
How the female imposter was able to enter the hospital undetected in a daytime security breach is the subject of ongoing investigation, said Mongaya.
As a policy, all hospital employees and staff are supposed to be wearing IDs.
In the footage, the woman was not wearing an ID tag.
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