Friday, August 14, 2009

National Secret: Undocumented Babies Killed by Hospitals

Movie star Zhang Ziyi recently pled to entertainment reporters not to dig on her private life, because 'for your it's gossip, but for me it's my life'.

For everyone else what was revealed from a ten years old medical record is a taboo of national secret; but for Ms. Chen, it was her life forever without her own offspring. Her first baby boy, whom she was told born dead, was actually delivered alive but later killed by the hospital because she did not have proper document, the birth license. She had since unable to carry another baby.

In mainland China, one family is allowed to have one child. In addition, the couple must obtain a birth license before a child is born. It is an often troublesome procedure for many because each 'unit (the bottom level organization in charge of people's work, life, welfare etc.)' is only allocated a certain number of such licenses each year. If birth licenses run out before the end of year comes, then the options for married couples are either an abortion or carefully avoiding pregnancy. Sometimes it makes a laughable moment when co-workers have to coordinate their sex schedule so that they could fairly and wisely make use of the available birth licenses. Sometimes it became a sadden moment when some couples were told they would have to have an abortion, even when it's their first pregnancy.

Ms. Chen's pregnancy was not planned. She and her husband rushed the wedding when they found out Ms. Chen was pregnant. Before going to the hospital, they had envisioned the father could be arrested and they might have to pay a big fine. They were discussing selling the house to pay the fine. However, they didn't know and little was known to most people that the Health Ministry had a policy which dictated babies without the aforementioned 'birth license' would be secretly executed by the hospital. In China, fathers are not allowed in the delivery room, and mothers would be usually worn out to be alert of what's exactly happening. The baby would be quietly and decisively killed by the delivering doctors, and the mother would be told the child was born dead.

Ms. Chen has been a frequent visitor of fertility clinics in the past 10 years with no luck. About one month ago on July 31, 2009, when she was hospitalized for another fertility treatment at the No. 1 Ninghai Hospital, where the baby was killed tens years ago, a copy of the old medical record was accidentally given to her along with current records. That's when the national secret was leaked to Ms. Chen.


The time was 1999, and the hospital was the No. 1 Hospital of Ninghai (Address: 73 South Taoyuan Road, Ninghai, Zhejiang, 315600, PRC. Tel: +86 (574) 6557-8396. President: Fang Zhengming. Beds: 400) in Ningbo, a coastal city of Zhejiang Province. Three Obgyns were involved in the termination process. They are Drs. Jiang3, Wang and Jiang1. According to the medical record, Dr. Jiang3 carried out the execution 2 minutes after the baby was born alive.

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