After spate of incidents of baby lifting, more recently at Bangalore’s Bowring hospital and Chennai’s RSRM hospital, here comes a solution from the Tamil Nadu State Health Department , a new technology to monitor new born babies in the hospitals.
Last month, a trio which included a pregnant woman, her sick husband and her son approached a 20-day-old baby’s parents Manikandan and Indira and ran away with the baby by distracting them at RSRM hospital in Royapuram. The parents had come to the hospital to know about the State welfare assistance scheme. After 15 days, police released portraits of the trio.
On October 4, 2015, Farida Mujib, a 25-year-old woman rushed to Bowring hospital to feed her new born baby boy and unfortunately the baby was abducted by another lady. Fareeda was not able to see the baby for three days as he was not breathing properly and was kept in neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Farida Mujib is a resident of Kadugodi and wife of goods autorickshaw driver Syed Mujib.
The researchers at Anna University are developing an infant monitoring system using radio-frequency identification (RFID) to be installed at hospitals to prevent baby abductions.
The new system has been asked to be implemented urgently by the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Tuesday after the court proceedings were going on in a case in which a baby was abducted from a blind couple.
There will three layers of security for baby, mother and patient attenders in the hospital which includes RFID tags, readers and monitoring and an alert system.
Professor S Muttan from the National Hub for Healthcare Instrumentation Development at the Anna University told The New Indian Express, “All the electronic data like parent’s name, address and patient admission numbers can be stored in these tags. These tags would also be made of bio-compatible material to avoid skin ruptures. These tags will also with the attender and mother’s wrists.”
He added that there will RFID readers which will be installed in the wards to read the signals from these tags. The signal would be affected if anyone tries to take the baby from the mother and the attender. An audio and visual alarm will start ringing and a text alert will also be sent to the police.
To avoid breaking of these tags, electronic locks will be attached to these tags. Once the patient gets discharged the data can be erased and new data can be stored. The cost of the single active tag will be Rs 2,500 which catches signal for 50 metres and the reader will cost about Rs.40,000, according to the TNIE report.
The project will be completed in three to six months and it will be first implemented in the Kilpauk Medical College.