Coimbatore :

In a novel move to curb stealing of newborn babies, the Coimbatore Medical College Hospital on Tuesday launched a mechanism to splash the names of baby’s mother, father and time of birth of the baby on a moving screen. The hospital has also made arrangements to show the handing over of the newborn to the relatives in a television kept near the moving screen outside the labour ward.

K Veeramuthu, a 27-year-old employee of a private company in Ondipudur, was happy to ‘see’ the message in the screen mentioning that his wife Sumathi had given birth to a baby boy on Monday morning at 9.05am. “When I saw the message with the names of me and my wife splashed on the moving screen, I was happy,” he said.

The screen was operated on a trial basis for the last few days and came into full effect on Tuesday.

“With this, we hope incidents of child thefts can be eliminated,” said Dr Isaac Christian Moses, the deputy medical superintendent of CMCH.

Besides this mechanism, CCTVs are also in place in the hospital to track the movement of visitors and patients.

This is expected to act as an additional mechanism to prevent child thefts and detect any suspicious activities. However, the television at present is not working.

Officials said that this will start transmitting images in the coming days of the handing over of the newborn baby. Dr M Swathinthradevi, a senior doctor at the maternity ward, said patients responded positively to the development. “Patients are happy with the new device which helps them get information at the earliest,” she said.

“This set-up will help to avoid confusion over the condition of the mother and baby. It will also stop relatives from pestering nurses and other staff about the condition of the mother and baby,” Veeramuthu says.

source: http://www.articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Coimbatore / TNN / June 27th, 2013