MOTHER THE ABANDONED ONE

Recently, an illiterate mother of three daughters fled away from the hospital in Romania because she cannot afford to look after them as she is already struggling to raise three children.  The hospital in Romania reports 25 other such cases this year.  However, in 18^th and 19^th century, mothers brought their newborn babies in a baby hatch and left them anonymously and this practice has been in use in many countries since 2000 notably in Germany, where there are around 100 hatches and 300 hatches in Pakistan.

Every nursing home, nowadays, witnesses some cases of child abandonment, wherein either the child is born out of wedlock or the mother is too poor to raise her child. Thus, taking away all rights of a child from him/her. Dr. Surekha Matkar who owns Amrit Nursing Home says that at least 4-5 such cases takes place every year in her hospital. “Many of these mothers are unmarried and are majorly in their twenties”. She adds. Sometimes they do not even do the rest of the payment says Surekha. Thus, leaving the responsibility of the child on the shoulders of Hospital Authority. There are many cases of a girl child being left in the hospital as well. Apart from this, there were also some cases where the child died within hours of his/her birth, though he/she was perfectly fine at the time of his/her birth. Such cases suspect the practice of maternal neonaticide, wherein many of the mothers are spinsters.

Mamata Shukla, a nurse in the Amrit Nursing Home, takes care of such abandoned children until and unless the child does not gets adopted. There has been 4 such cases wherein the child has been taken care by the nurses of hospital, out of which 3 have been adopted and 1 has been sent to orphanage. “All the three kids have been given in a well-off families where they are taken a proper care of and are living a joyful life with their parents.”, says Surekha. She says that they prefer giving children for adoption rather than sending them to the orphanage because they think that the child’s new parents could give him/her a better life.

Says Dr. Matkar a quote in reference to rights for abandoned children,” Don’t go for surrogacy, go for adoption...and don’t just give birth, be the mother of an abandoned one.”  

Posted by- Pandey Kavita

MACJ, PART-I