Mummies, sharing an article i got from another thread about the article of nanny, published in New paper..
September 26, 2008
IT was one shock after another for the Singaporean mother of a baby girl.
TRAUMA: Madam Lee's daughter is now a year old, but has to be tube-fed her milk. Madam Lee holds up a copy of the police report the family made. PICTURE: SHIN MIN DAILY NEWS
First, her nanny called to say her daughter, then 4 months old, had been rushed to the hospital's emergency unit on 22 Apr.
Later that night, she and her husband were questioned for 20 minutes by the police on suspicion of child abuse.
The doctors diagnosed that the baby girl had been shaken so hard, bleeding had occurred in her brain and eyes.
The couple worry that their daughter, now 1 year old, may never regain her sight fully.
On Monday, the police issued a stern warning to the nanny, who had looked after the baby girl and her brother, now 7, since last December.
The New Paper checked with the police yesterday as to why only a stern warning was issued. The police were not able to comment by press time.
The nanny is in her 30s and has two sons of her own, aged 12 and 8.
The mother, 31, who wanted to be known only as Madam Lee, a sales assistant, said she had been on her way home at about 6pm on 22 Apr, when the nanny called to say the baby girl was in the emergency unit at the National University Hospital (NUH).
Madam Lee rushed to the hospital after informing her husband.
Shivering
She recalled: 'My daughter's entire body was shivering and the whites of her eyes were showing. She was also breathing heavily.
'I was crying. I was very scared and panicked. My husband rushed down to join me, but we could only wait while the doctors and nurses worked to save my daughter's life.'
She said it was two hours before the baby girl pulled through.
She was transferred to the paediatric intensive care unit, where she remained for 10days.
Doctors told the couple that their daughter's brain and eyes were bleeding internally and that she had been having a seizure when she was admitted.
Madam Lee said: 'The doctor then told us that the police will be taking our statements because they suspected that our daughter had been abused. We were stunned. The thought had not crossed our mind till then.'
They gave the police their statement.
Madam Lee said the nanny had been the only one with her daughter before she was rushed to hospital.
Their son was in school then.
The nanny's husband was in China for work.
Madam Lee said: 'At the hospital, the nanny said she had not done anything except, maybe, put my daughter down on the bed too forcefully.
'But the doctor said my daughter's entire head was bleeding. It was unlikely to be caused by a fall or by hitting her head against a hard object, because the injury would be only at one point on her head then.'
The couple had hired the nanny, who lives across the road from their Jurong West flat, on an ex-neighbour's recommendation.
They paid her $750 monthly to look after their son and their daughter from 7am to 7pm, Mondays to Fridays.
They usually dropped off the children at the nanny's flat in the morning before they headed to work, and picked them up in the evening to go home.
Madam Lee said that in February, the nanny had told her that the baby girl had rolled over and fallen from a cot while she was busy cooking in the kitchen.
But as she did not detect any swelling on her the next day, Madam Lee did not take her daughter to see the doctor.
She said: 'I did notice a blue-black mark on my daughter's cheek the night before the incident, but the next morning, I forgot to ask the nanny about it.
'After that, my daughter was admitted to hospital and I forgot about the mark.'
Two operations
Madam Lee said doctors at NUH operated on her daughter twice in three months.
The first time, they inserted a tube into her brain for excess blood to flow out into a bag in order to relieve the pressure in the little girl's head.
But her condition did not improve.
Three months later, doctors again inserted a tube to let the excess blood flow into her daughter's stomach.
Their daughter was in hospital from 22Apr to 15 May.
Madam Lee said her daughter had to be given morphine so she would not feel the 'many needles and tubes inserted all over her body'.
She said: 'The doctors said they had to let my daughter 'sleep' because if she woke, she would feel the pain. And if she cried, the pressure in her brain would increase and cause another seizure.'
She said the bleeding in her daughter's head has subsided somewhat. But doctors have to monitor a blood clot at the right bottom part of the baby girl's brain.
Her daughter is unable to see out of the right eye completely, while the left eye can still detect light.
Doctors told the couple that it was unclear whether she would regain her eyesight.
Madam Lee also said that her daughter has forgotten how to perform simple actions like turning over and drinking milk.
The girl now has to be fed using a tube inserted through her nose. She also has one session each of occupational therapy and physiotherapy every month.
Madam Lee said: 'The nanny initially told us at the hospital that she'll take responsibility for my daughter's accident. But a few days later, she denied ever saying that.
'No one knows what happened except her and my daughter, who can't talk. But the accident did arise in her home, so we feel she still has to take responsibility.'
The couple has stopped letting the nanny care for their son after the incident.
Madam Lee said she did not know if the nanny was looking after any other children.
