Dead baby boy is thrown out with rubbish in Hong Kong hospital

Jan 12, 2009, 4:12 GMT

Hong Kong - The body of a baby boy was accidentally thrown out with clinical waste by mortuary staff at a Hong Kong hospital and is probably lost in a landfill site, officials admitted Monday.

The announcement by the city's Hospital Authority came after a week-long investigation into the loss of the infant, who died after being delivered prematurely at Hong Kong Eastern Hospital.

At a briefing Monday, authority chief executive Shane Solomon said the baby's body had been placed in a mortuary compartment with a man's corpse and is then thought to have been accidentally sent to a landfill site.

Police officers Monday began a search through chemical waste at the city's Tsuen Kwan O landfill site where clinical waste from the public hospital is sent. The search is expected to last up to a week.

Solomon said the authority accepted responsibility for the blunder. It had since banned the storing of bodies together and would soon introduce closed-circuit cameras in all mortuaries, he said.

The baby boy died on December 15 and disappeared after being placed in the same mortuary compartment as a man whose body was released for cremation on December 19.

The blunder was made public in the same week that another Hong Kong public hospital admitted serious errors in failing to send medics to treat a dying man who collapsed on its doorstep.

The hospital receptionist told the man's father to dial for an ambulance, refusing even to ring the emergency services number for him. The 56-year-old man later died.