Infant abduction back in the spotlight

Mar 13, 2007 4:09 PM

           

A woman accused of snatching a newborn from a Texas hospital in the middle of the night and hiding her 100 miles away in New Mexico was being held in Texas on Monday to face a kidnapping charge.

Rayshaun Parson, 21, was extradited from New Mexico to Texas after she alledgedly posed as a medical worker and took "Baby Mychael" from her mother's hospital early Saturday. Parson reportedly walked out of the hospital with the infant hidden in her purse, police said. Police found 4-day-old Mychael Darthard-Dawodu on Sunday in Clovis, N.M., a day after she was taken from Lubbock's Covenant Lakeside Hospital.

Although hospitals already have measures in place to prevent baby abductions, incidents like the one in Lubbock have caused hospitals to think twice about security.

"It certainly heightens the awareness the hospital has in regards to infant abductions," Cory Edmondson, vice president of support for nearby Midland Memorial Hospital in Midland, Texas, tells the Midland Reporter-Telegram.

"As recently as December, we did a drill that included infant abduction and our system worked. The doors locked down and the individual was seen and chased around," he tells the newspaper. "We were able to stop them and call the MPD via the scenario to ask for assistance."

"We're always evaluating ourselves and how we can improve," Edmondson says, adding the hospital is looking at upgrading its security cameras.

At Medical Center Hospital in Odessa, director of emergency preparedness and safety Sharon Lloyd said the incident didn't make the hospital re-evaluate its security, just continue to "focus on the safety of our infants."

MCH has six different layers of security for infants, including a sensor put on their ankle from the time they are born. If someone tries to leave with a child, alarms go off.

"We go through the whole system, up to and including calling law enforcement. We do a minimum of two a year," Lloyd tells the newpaper.

Covenant Health System, which runs the Lubbock hospital, also has changes planned. "I can tell you things were changed immediately, and those changes and protocols are in place now, and there's probably more," Covenant Health System vice president Gwen Stafford told a local news station.

Covenant already places monitoring devices on the ankles and wrists of newborns.

Another local hospital, University Medical Center, plans to put up posters in all rooms to show patients exactly what a hospital staff member should be wearing. The sign would also show what identifiers allow staff members to take a child from a room.

For more on hospital security related to infant abduction, see Swaddled in Safety, from the January issue of Access Control & Security Systems.

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