Parents of baby with 'extra limbs' demand to take him home

Jun 18, 2014

The parents of the baby who was born with extra limbs last month are insisting on taking their child home, saying he is in a sound state and not sick after all.

By John Agaba

The parents of the baby who was born with extra limbs last month are insisting on taking their child home, saying he is in a sound state and not sick after all.

But Mulago hospital administrators have refused to budge, saying they still need to run some tests on the baby, who was born with two scrotums and five extra limbs late last month.
 

On Wednesday, a visibly agitated Boniface Okongo, the father of the baby, and his wife Margaret Awino, spent the entire afternoon pleading with the hospital administrators to let them take the baby home, all in vain.

According to them, Baby Balungi may have come out with the extra limbs, but he is alright.
 

“Why can’t they let us take our baby home, after all there is nothing they are giving him like medicine?” said the baby’s father Okongo.
 

“We can go home and bring him (the baby) back to hospital when they want to carry out the other tests,” the peasant from Bugiri district, said.
 

“I want to go home and look after my other children,” said the father of four.
 

But, Enock Kusasira, the Mulago Hospital spokesperson, insisted that Okongo and the boy’s mother can’t take him from hospital, unless otherwise.
 

“We can’t discharge a patient because the parents have other pressing issues at home,” he said.
 

“It is the doctor to determine whether a patient should be discharged or not, not the parents. If the father wants to go and look after the other children, let him go, but provide someone who can assist the wife to look after the baby,” Kusasira said.
 

But, Okongo insisted he can’t leave his wife behind.
 

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