Authorities in charge of a public Hong Kong hospital separated an 11-month-old baby from her mother this week after the mother admitted her infant daughter to the facility for an unknown illness and the baby subsequently tested positive for the Chinese coronavirus, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported on Wednesday.
Hong Kong permanent resident Laura, who was born in the U.K., told AFP on February 22 she admitted her daughter Ava, 11 months, to an undisclosed Hong Kong public hospital on the evening of February 20 for symptoms including a fever and labored breathing. Ava tested positive for the Chinese coronavirus after she was admitted to the medical facility Sunday night, prompting hospital staff to transfer the infant to an intensive care unit (ICU) without her mother or father.
“Ava is now stable in the intensive care unit and will soon be moved to an isolation ward but she will have to recover without her parents for at least seven days,” according to AFP.
Laura tearfully recounted on Tuesday how she begged the hospital’s staff to allow her to accompany her daughter to the ICU, but to no avail.
Patients lie on hospital beds as they wait at a temporary holding area outside Caritas Medical Centre in Hong Kong Wednesday, Feb. 16, 2022. There was visible evidence that Hong Kong hospitals were becoming overwhelmed by the latest Covid surge, with patients on stretchers and in tents being seen to by medical personnel on Wednesday outside the Caritas hospital. (AP Photo Vincent Yu)
“I’ve said I’ll sleep in the corridor, on the floor, anywhere,” she told the news agency.
People sleep in hospital beds with temperatures falling at nighttime outside the Caritas Medical Centre in Hong Kong on February 16, 2022, as hospitals become overwhelmed with the city facing its worst Covid-19 coronavirus wave to date. (Photo by Peter PARKS / AFP)
The mother said she and her husband Nick “managed to share a quick video call with Ava” on February 22, describing the call as “devastating.”
People lie in hospital beds outside the Caritas Medical Centre in Hong Kong on February 18, 2022, as the city faces its worst coronavirus wave to date. (Photo by Peter PARKS / AFP)
“She’s 11 months, she’s aware of her surroundings, separation anxiety is at an all-time high at this age, she was inconsolable, just crying ‘Mamma, Mamma,'” Laura recalled.
Hong Kong’s Hospital Authority confirmed February 22 it has separated an unknown number of children and babies from their parents in recent days in accordance with its extreme Chinese coronavirus protocol.
“We tried our best to arrange the children and the parents who are confirmed COVID [Chinese coronavirus] positive to be in the same hospital so that the parents can take care of the children,” Hong Kong Hospital Authority official Lau Ka-hin told reporters Tuesday.
“But there are many, many cases and many children are infected. It takes time for our staff to arrange the suitable place for them,” he acknowledged.
Hong Kong’s Chinese coronavirus caseload has surged to record-high numbers in recent weeks causing the city’s hospitals to fill with patients. The Chinese Communist Party’s increased influence on Hong Kong’s government in recent months means the city has adhered to a Beijing-backed “zero COVID” policy requiring, in theory, the meticulous quarantine of each person who contracts the Chinese coronavirus within an affected community.