A grief-striken mother has narrated the story surrounding the death of her one year-old son in a Lagos-based creche. She wants the world, especially nursing mothers to be mindful of the kind of crèches/day-cares they enrol their babies in.
“Please share my story to the world. I would have sent this earlier but it took God’s Grace and courage because I am still in pain. My son’s name is Oluwatamilore Holloway. I enrolled him in Debiruss creche on the 16th of September as soon as he clocked 1 on the 13th of sept, 2014.
I was told probably he was dehydrated and the hospital told me he was brought in dead. I asked the Nanny what happened, she said he woke up and she was feeding him, that she gave him the first spoon and that when she was about to give him the second spoon, he started closing his eyes, thank God for autopsy which revealed that my son died due to Aspiration of Food particles in the lungs, definitely, he was choked to death with food.
As soon as they heard the result was out, they started coming to my house to beg me, they even went to my priest in church. It had to take the intervention of my priest that I should just leave everything to God.
They came to me and they offered to close down the creche and get a Nurse for the school and that they would write my Family an Apology letter , that was in January which I haven’t gotten as I write this .
I also noticed that during Christmas they had the effontary to decorate their school, despite the fact that my son just died, they told me they had already contacted the decorator and that they couldn’t stop him, they even had Christmas party which I felt it wasn’t fair on my part.
I gave them 3 conditions that they should get a professional Nurse, get a CCTV for their school and they should get a Qualified child minder , but they only came back to tell me they were going to close the creche and that it will only be opened for the children of their staff.
On the 6th of May,I went to the school to find out what was happening, if they had truly closed the creche, I went in through the back gate and I went straight to the creche,I found out , they had no Nurse, one of the child minders who was working there,was still there, there was no CCTV and the crèche was not closed down, because I saw other children from outside who was also with my son in the crèche. I was told they got a Nurse and I think the working conditions was not suitable for the Nurse so she had to leave.
My grievance is that they carried on in their normal Business as if nothing happened, and I expected them to do the needful, I did not even ask them for a dime, but I said for the sake of other children, they should get Qualified people who will take care of the children should in case first Aids has to be given but because they are money conscious, they would rather let the worst happen than prevent it, and what they do is to convert an ordinary cleaner to a Nanny or child minder to save cost. A Nanny who is not experienced and who can’t even feed a child. They have to do the needful before they kill other children, who can’t speak for themselves like my poor son.