Hospital nurse plasters child’s mouth to stop baby from crying in Russia

A nurse at one of the hospitals of the city of Ekaterinburg is reported to have put a Band-Aid over the mouth of a child who was crying too much.

Photo: Hospital nurse plasters child’s mouth to stop baby from crying in Russia

A female patient called Elena and her child were in a nearby infectious disease ward at the time. Elena happened to witness abuse and recorded it on camera of her mobile phone. She saw a nurse putting a strip of Band-Aid over the mouth of a baby to prevent it from crying and spitting a teat out. The child is a “refusenik,” he was abandoned by his parents shortly after birth. Elena told the nurse to stop mistreating the child. The nurse simply ignored her. “I felt really angry watching her treat the child like that. She just slapped Band-Aid on his mouth to keep it shut. What would have happened if the child had burped?” said Elena.

Having left the hospital, Elena filed a complaint to an ombudswoman of the Sverdlovsk region. “It’s still too early to arrive at conclusions as to an actual act of abuse committed by the nurse,” said Tatyana Merzlyakova, ombudswoman of the Sverdlovsk region. “Sometimes the nurses say they use a Band-Aid for attaching a teat in a baby’s mouth. They claim it’s a good way of keeping the teat in place without washing it too often. Anyway, we need to look into all the facts relating to the case,” Merzlyakova was quoted as saying by Vesti.

The complaint was later forwarded to a regional prosecutor’s office. The nurse is identified as Lyudmila Krylosova, she has been working as a medical professional for more than 20 years. She admitted to having used a Band-Aid on that day though she stressed the point that an adhesive material had been attached around the baby’s mouth rather lightly for a short period of time. Now it is up to the prosecutor’s office to decide whether the nurse’s actions should be characterized as negligence or cruelty to children. Prosecutors already received the complaint with photographic evidence provided by a witness of the incident.

Translated by Guerman Grachev
Pravda.ru