Baby Dies At Jammu Hospital, Abandoned By Parents After Testing Positive

Local police are trying to track down the couple after they evaded repeated attempts by the hospital to contact them

A two-month-old baby boy died at a hospital in Jammu and Kashmir on Monday, after the parents abandoned him because he'd tested Covid positive. Health officials are trying to track down the couple after they evaded repeated attempts by the hospital to contact them. "Yesterday (Monday) morning we received a two-month-old child suffering from multiple problems, including a heart condition. By 8.30 pm he died. We conducted a COVID-19 test and it was positive," Dr Dara Singh, the Medical Superintendent at Jammu's Sri Maharaja Gulab Singh Hospital, said. "Subsequently we requested parents to take COVID-19 tests. They said they would do so... but then fled. Our security team tried to trace them...," he added. The last rites of the baby have yet to be performed because of legal issues; in the absence of any heirs hospital officials said they had to wait for 72 hours before the funeral can be arranged.