Two-day old child rescued after found abandoned near hospital

A two-day-old girl child was found abandoned near a hospital at Chhatrapur, the district headquarters town of Ganjam in Odisha.

Hearing her cries, a passerby spotted her on Sunday evening. After being rescued, the infant was handed over to the hospital authorities.

After treatment, medical authorities handed her to NGO Childline yesterday. The Childline activists produced the infant before the district child welfare committee (CWC) and she was housed in the childcare home here.

"According to the doctor's report, the condition of the baby is fine. She was fed according to advice of the doctors," Prabhu Prasad Patra, coordinator, Childline, Berhampur, said.
 

"When we came to know about the rescue of the infant, we immediately informed the CWC, Childline, district child protection officer and district social welfare officer for her proper care and protection," Inspector In-Charge of Chhatrapur police station, Bishnu Prasad Patra, said.

"We are looking for the parents of the infant and trying to ascertain whether they had any role in abandoning her," he said.

Childline activists said they had rescued six abandoned babies from different places of the district in the past 10 months and four of them were girls.

Finding a girl child abandoned assumes significance as Ganjam has a child sex ratio lower than the state average.

The child sex ratio in Ganjam district was at 908 girls per 1,000 boys according to 2011 census. It was lower than the state average of 941 girls, officials said.