The Director of MOH Clinical Information Systems, Dr. Abdulrahman Al-Bawardi, has announced that the Newborns Protection e-System has been introduced into 16 MOH hospitals so far as a first phase. He added that the second phase will is planned to include 149 hospitals with maternity wards.
Dr. Al-Bawardi pointed out that the Joint Committee of Health Facilities Accreditation, the accreditation of which is sought after by many hospitals to serve as a testimony of the high-quality services provided by these hospitals, obligates prioritizing the issue of kidnapping or exchanging newborns. That's to be accomplished through a serious of policies and procedures, as well as ongoing training of the employees of these hospitals.
“To that end,” Al-Bawardi added, “the Ministry of Health (MOH) has taken serious steps and measures seeking to diminish the phenomenon of newborns kidnapping. For instance, the Ministry showed keen interest in raising workers' and citizens' awareness, distributing educational brochures, training workers, and keeping infants at the newborns nursery during visits. About 62% of kidnapping cases take place at the mother's room. Among the procedures intended to reduce newborns kidnapping, also, is keeping infants away from doors, and hiring an Arabic-speaking nurse to deal with the mother, as well as coordinating between the hospital administration and the security authorities, installing monitoring cameras and lockable magnetic doors. That's to be added to providing the hospital staff with a uniform and ID cards. Besides, the parents' documents have to be reviewed carefully when delivering the baby, and the above-mentioned e-system has to be unified.”
Dr. Al-Bawardi went on to explain, “The new system is based on the RFID technology, through which people are identified by radio frequencies. Both the mother and her baby put on bracelets with identical signs; thus preventing the exchange of babies. Babies are monitored around the clock, to prevent their getting out of the newborns nursery without permission, let alone kidnapping them.”
It is worth mentioning in this respect, that Al-Yamamah Hospital, in Riyadh, has launched its e-system for the protection of newborns against kidnapping and exchange, with a view to ensuring safety for newborns. For his part, the director of the hospital, Dr. Faisal Musalli, said, “It is one of the modern and advanced hospital safety systems. Designed for the protection of newborns against kidnapping and exchange, the system consists of two sub-systems: the Hugs System, meant to protect babies against kidnapping, and the Kisses System, meant to protect them against exchange. The technology upon which the system is based depends on electronic linking between the baby and its mother, by placing an electronic bracelet around the baby's wrist, and another identical one around its mother's wrist, immediately after birth. Besides, theses bracelets enable the hospital to keep a close eye on newborns, in a way that ensures delivering the baby to nobody except its mother. The system will ensure, also, that newborns will not leave the nursery room until after strict security measures. It is a high-accuracy alarm, tracking and e-identification system.”
“Launching this system comes as a proactive and precautionary measurement in an attempt to avoid dangers,” Musalli added. “Therefore, nurses and work-teams have been trained on the new procedures, pointing out that no kidnapping or exchange of newborns has been recorded in the hospital.”
The Newborns Protection e-System is reckoned one of the latest and most advanced programs adopted by the Ministry of Health (MOH) seeking to protect babies against kidnapping. It is also one of the state-of-the-art hospital safety programs targeting the protection of newborns against kidnapping and exchange.
Newborns kidnapping or exchanging is an internationally recurrent phenomenon. Keen to avoid it, the Saudi Ministry of Health (MOH) has obligated a series of measures meant to prevent the occurrence of this phenomenon. These measures include raising the awareness of MOH employees, as well as the public, especially the baby's family. That's to be added to organizing training courses on this subject, and coordinating with the hospitals' safety departments. In doing so, the Ministry seeks to ensure the highest level of safety for newborns, and ascertain that gates are firmly closed, and ID cards are properly used.