The family of the newborn killed after being allegedly dropped by a six-year-old left to roam a French maternity ward alone have claimed that they had spoken to the child’s mother twice telling her to keep an eye on him.
Five-day-old Baby Zayneb-Cassandra was found lying unresponsive on the floor beside her crib with a traumatic brain injury at the Jeanne-de-Flandre Children’s Hospital in the northern city of Lille, France, on Friday, July 11 and died from her injuries last Tuesday.
A boy, whose mother was in the maternity ward, was found standing on a chair beside her and is believed to have plucked the tiny baby from her crib and dropped her on the floor.
Karima, a cousin of Zayneb’s grieving father has claimed that hospital staff were ‘warned’ of the child’s ‘abnormal behaviour’ and that the baby’s grandfather had spoken to the boy’s mother two times, urging her to keep an eye on her son.
She also alleged that the boy had fixated on Zayneb, calling her ‘my doll’, and had likely touched her unsupervised a day prior to her fall.
‘The day before, Zayneb had already been found without a diaper or electrodes, wet and suffering from hypothermia,’ Karima claimed.
When the family notified the hospital of this, they claimed that they were told by staff that the baby must have taken her diapers off herself.
The family of the newborn killed after being allegedly dropped by a six-year-old left to roam a French maternity ward alone have claimed that they had spoken to the child’s mother twice telling her to keep an eye on him
Baby Zayneb’s grieving father Mohamed-Hamza told French press that he will ‘fight to identify those responsible’ for the tragedy
Baby Zayneb, who was born six weeks premature by caesarean to parents Mohamed-Hamza and Sephora, was resuscitated twice before she died last week.
Lille’s prosecutor’s office on Friday confirmed that the infant died from trauma ‘consistent with a fall to the floor’.
‘A six-year-old child, a member of another family, was indeed seen near the crib and the child on the floor,’ prosecutors also confirmed.
Zayneb’s family are also urging other witnesses to come forward, with Karima explaining that what Zayneb’s mother doesn’t want ‘is for people to think that she left her child unattended,’ when she ‘entrusted her to the hospital staff’.
The boy and the baby were discovered by Delphine, a young woman who had recently given birth herself, who rushed into the room after hearing what she described as a ‘loud bang’.
Delphine later told Le Parisien that the boy in question had been disruptive for days and was not being supervised as his mother was also recovering from giving birth.
‘He was running around everywhere and had already touched a baby in a stroller,’ Delphine said.
Questions are mounting as to how the boy was able to gain access to Zayneb’s crib in the neonatal unit alone, despite being reported as a ‘disruptive presence’ in the hospital.
Karima explained how the boy was running riot in the halls for days after being dropped off at the hospital each morning by his father.
‘The father would drop him off in the ward from 7am to 8pm,’ she said.
Mohamed-Hamza’s cousin Karima alleged that the six-year-old boy had fixated on Zayneb, calling her ‘my doll’, and had likely touched her unsupervised a day prior to her fall
Zayneb’s grandmother, Fatma, told the Voix du Nord newspaper: ‘The boy would arrive at 7am and spend all day running up and down the hallways.
‘All the mothers were complaining, and a nurse even warned the child’s mother that there was a problem. He was entering the other rooms.
‘He also entered Zayneb’s room for the first time. He said she looked like a doll, and my husband, who was there, took him out.’
‘It seems he tried to grab her by her nappy, and she fell on her head,’ Fatma concluded.
‘My family is destroyed… My daughter is devastated. Coming home without her baby is inconceivable.’
Zayneb’s distraught father, Mohamed-Hamza, told Le Parisien he doesn’t blame the boy who allegedly caused his daughter’s life-ending injuries, but hit out at the hospital for their lack of care.
‘Every six-year-old is a little disruptive. I don’t blame the mother; she had just given birth… But the child should have been supervised,’ the 23-year-old declared.
Fatma added that she had to push medical staff to arrange psychological support for her inconsolable daughter-in-law after she was informed her child had died.
A criminal investigation into the tragedy was opened this week by the juvenile unit of the Lille Judicial Police Service, in conjunction with local prosecutors.
The hospital also announced the opening of ‘an internal administrative investigation’.
A spokesperson said: ‘This human tragedy has deeply affected the staff and teams of Lille University Children’s Hospital, as well as the other families present.’
A separate statement provided to French press acknowledged ‘a particularly serious and upsetting exceptional event, unrelated to care’.
‘The thoughts of the University Hospital professionals are first and foremost with the young victim, her family, and her loved ones,’ it read.
The hospital also added that ‘measures to strictly limit visits to the neonatal units of the Lille University Hospital have been taken as a precautionary measure’.
Mohamed-Hamza and Sephora have not yet filed an official complaint, but dismissed the statement.
‘It won’t bring my daughter back… But we’re waiting for answers. There was a breach, and I’m going to fight to identify those responsible.
‘Justice will do its job,’ he told Le Parisien.