MANILA – The newborn boy abandoned in a trash can Monday at a restroom of NAIA Terminal 1 is doing well, so far, at a hospital in Pasay City, but continues to be under close observation by doctors who want to rule out any infection.
The chief resident of the Pediatrics section at Pasay City General Hospital (PCGH), Dr. Sheryl Avecilla, said that, since the infant was turned over by airport authorities, all the tests done on the boy have, thus far, turned out negative for adverse indications, indicating the child is healthy.
The tests had to be done considering the circumstances in which the infant had been placed, and because doctors were clueless about the health status of the mother, whose identity remains unknown.
“We performed a septic work up” and administer antibiotics intravenously, “because we don’t know the maternal history of the baby. But, so far, negative naman ang work-ups natin [all the workups we’ve done showed up negative],” said Avecilla.
According to the PCGH medical social worker Jinkly Ilagan, once doctors give the boy clearance and the social workers complete the paperwork, a certificate of foundling will be issued by authorities, and the hospital social workers will then turn over the infant to the Department of Social Work and Development.
The DSWD, in turn, will work on a “declaration of abandonment” to make the child eligible for adoption, explained Ilagan.
A janitress, Maricel Guliman, found the infant inside a trash can in a cubicle at a toilet in the west arrival area of NAIA 1 Monday (July 3).
Guliman’s curiosity was drawn to the cubicle after she noticed some blood on the floor and the sides of the toilet bowl. Before that, she said, she had noticed a woman emerge from there. The woman smiled at her as she approached the lavatory to wet a handkerchief.
When Guliman proceeded to the cubicle, she tried to clear the trash can but noticed it was heavy, so she called airport guards who were passing by the toilet. The guards called the police when they noticed the blood.
An airport nurse was also called in, and brought the infant to the MIAA clinic, where a doctor found it gasping and “cyanotic”.
Half an hour of efforts to revive the infant – with oxygen inhalation and ambubagging – paid off, as the baby suddenly cried aloud continuously.
Guliman said she can identify the woman she saw in the toilet if she sees her again, and authorities are trying to trace her. The janitress earlier called on the woman to “check out your child. He’s alive,” and hoped the mother’s conscience would bother her.
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