Eight babies removed from a filthy cellar in Orange Grove in Johannesburg — where they had allegedly been abandoned by their teenage mothers — are back with their mothers.
Johannesburg General Hospital spokesperson Lungi Mvumvu said on Tuesday that the babies had not been admitted but examined as outpatients.
”We discovered that the children had a skin disorder, eczema. We then referred them to social services,” Mvumvu said.
On Tuesday, one of the young mothers told the South African Press Association (Sapa) she had moved to a better place and denied abandoning her baby.
The babies were taken to the hospital on March 1 by paramedics after a municipal ward committee member, Nomonde Duda, raised the alarm.
Netcare 911 spokesperson Trevor Putterill confirmed that Netcare paramedics were called to take at least six sick babies to hospital on March 1.
”Most of the babies we found were underfed; they looked like they were sick.”
Putterill said the place looked like some kind of brothel.
Duda described discovering the eight babies in the building on Seventh Street when a man tipped her off that they and other ill people were living there in the cellar.
”The place was like a dungeon; it was so dark that one had to use a torch to see … It was also filthy and unsuitable for small babies,” Duda said.
She was told that the teenage mothers, aged between 14 and 16, were working as prostitutes in Hillbrow because they had no other income.
”We were told that they left the babies alone at night and only returned the next day.”
She said one baby was very ill and she urged the mother to take the baby to a clinic.
Some of the babies were being looked after by an elderly woman, but others had been left alone in other rooms in the building.
Duda contacted councillor Ray Wolder, who told Sapa the conditions the babies were living under were terrible.
”Those people live in difficult circumstances in a basement … There is only one working toilet in the building.”
She said the civic committee was investigating.
On Tuesday, a group of men were drinking sorghum beer in the cellar and the girls and their babies had left.
An elderly woman told Sapa a lot of people lived inside the basement. ”I don’t know how many.”
Nearby in Sixth street, Zama Mneno (17) told Sapa she and her cousin and their two babies, Andiswa and Lebohang, had lived in the basement with her mother, a casual worker, and her pensioner grandmother.
”We moved out last Saturday after Nomonde saw the place and told us it was not suitable for babies.”
The family now lives in a two-roomed cottage where they pay R1 500 rent per room.
Mneno flatly denied she and her cousin were prostitutes and said she was shocked to read this in a daily newspaper.
”It must be those people from emgodini (the basement) who are spreading these rumours because we turned them down when they asked to date us. I don’t blame the newspaper.”
Mneno’s grandmother, Princess Mneno, denied that her grandchildren were prostitutes. ”My grandchildren would never do such a thing.”
Zama Mneno denied ever leaving her child alone at night.
”Even when Nomonde arrived on that day I was there.”
She said her daughter, Andiswa, suffers form eczema and that she was given medicine by the hospital.
She said Andiswa’s condition had not improved but she would take her to the clinic soon.
Police were not investigating a crime. — Sapa