Court declares ‘motherless’ infant a baby of the state
A 22 year-old-woman, who lost her child in a city hospital, has lost her bid to claim another child after a report by the Kenya Medical Research Institute (Kemri) declared that the baby wasn’t hers.
The mother on Friday walked out of a Children Court dejected after it was established that she wasn’t the biological mother of the 30 day-old baby boy.
As a result of the report by Kemri following a DNA profiling, a Senior Principal Magistrate at the Milimani Law Courts declared the boy, a son of the state and ordered that he be kept at the Kenyatta National Hospital for care until a children’s officer establishes a home where he would be brought up.
On August 25, Ms Irene Kirimi was wheeled into the Space Health Care Hospital at the sprawling Kawangware Estate in Nairobi hoping to return home a happy mother but things took a shocking turn when she was informed that her baby was a stillbirth.
DEAD CHILD
“I was also told my child rot in my womb and at birth they threw him away,” said Ms Kirimi told the court.
“After two days I went back to the hospital to demand for more details about my child then later made my plight known to Nairobi Senator, Gideon Mike Sonko Mbuvi who enlisted legal services for me to pursue the case.”
Another woman, by the name Lydia Moraa, who also initially claimed the baby has since disappeared.
The court has meanwhile advised the couple Ms Kirimi and her husband Mr Peter Mahugu to consider filing a legal suit against the hospital to have the body of the dead child released to them.
The court also directed that the child should remain at KNH until the children’s officers locates a home where the baby can be sheltered.