Name mix-up leads to mistaken baby’s burial

THE names ‘Juliet and Juliana,’ caused major confusion at the Mount Meru Hospital’s morgue resulting in one of the babies who died after birth to be wrongly buried in the mining hills and had to be exhumed at night.

Labels on the cherubs bore the names of each baby’s mother, one being Juliet and another Juliana, but when the attendants passed the body of one of the deceased to relatives, they overlooked the near-similarities in the names and gave them the wrong baby.

Ms Juliana Nada is the mother of the baby boy who died before being named, prompting the label to bear the mother’s first name.

“I had given birth at Levolosi Hospital but the child had difficulty in breathing and was thus referred to Mount Meru Hospital, where he died,” she said.

Mr Francis Coaster is the mortuary attendant at the Regional Hospital and says the family of Juliana Nada had gone there to take the body but upon searching the entire morgue, it was never found and even trying to trace the baby back to the hospital ward did not yield any results.

“It subsequently transpired that after the baby’s death, he was never taken to the mortuary but people believed to be relatives picked it from the hospital ward without the mother knowing anything and took him for burial in Mirerani Hills,” said Coaster.

Two babies died last Sunday, one belonging to Juliet and another to Juliana, eventually, the Juliana baby was taken to Mirerani where it was buried on Sunday afternoon, but when the blunder was discovered, the body was exhumed at night and brought back to Arusha early on Monday Morning.

Dr Elias Mashalla, the acting in-charge at Mount Meru Hospital, said it was wrong for people to hastily pick up babies, dead or alive, without consulting authorities and in respect of dead bodies, it was important for people to wait until they are first delivered to the morgue.

The Mirerani party then took their rightful baby and went with it for burial in Mirerani while the other child was taken Maroroni Ward of Arumeru for a similar ritual.