Fake nurse steals baby at hospital

POLICE in a northwestern China city are offering 10,000 yuan (US$1,465) for information about a woman who posed as a nurse to steal a newborn baby from a hospital maternity room.

Officers in Xi'an, capital of Shaanxi Province, publicized video captured by the hospital's security camera showing the imposter nurse wearing a mask and apparently in her 20s, reported the Xi'an Evening News yesterday.

The woman walked into Zhang Lanfang's maternity room dressed like a nurse early last Saturday. She told Zhang the doctor ordered a test on her 15-hour-old girl and left the room with the baby in her arms.

Zhang's aunt Qu Ewa said they believed the woman to be a nurse. She didn't think twice about it and went back to sleep after the nurse left, she told the newspaper.

Zhang and Qu waited three hours for the "nurse" to come back. They found out the baby was stolen when the doctor told them no test had been ordered on their baby.

A white dress worn by the fake nurse was found in a garbage can.

The video showed that the woman, around 160 centimeters high with curling hair, entered the hospital dressed in a nurse uniform of the hospital. After taking the baby, she changed into casual clothes in a bathroom and left quickly.

A staff member surnamed Wang said the fake nurse's dress was one of the hospital's old uniforms.

Security has been stepped up after the theft. Everyone entering maternity rooms must show their identity.

Zhang said she called her husband Yan Xiaohong, a migrant worker in Anhui Province, after the birth of the girl last Friday. The couple was planning a party to celebrate before the tragedy happened.

Another patient in the maternity room said the woman tried to take some other kids before taking Zhang's. The fake nurse said she needed to check the babies' temperature, but was rebuffed by their parents, the report said.

Zhang has not eaten anything for two days.

"She did not have a name, and didn't see her father," repeated Zhang in tears.

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