- A nurse appeared to slam a newborn into a crib in an incident the baby’s father caught on camera.
- The video shows an individual picking up the baby, quickly turning it over and slamming it down again.
- The nurse was fired and is being investigated by the Department of Health and the police.
- For more stories, visit Business Insider.
A New York City nurse has been fired and is under investigation after video showed her appearing to smack a newborn baby into a crib, NBC New York reported.
Consuelo Saravia and Fidel Sinclair recently welcomed a baby, named Nikko, when they went through a “heartbreaking” ordeal at Good Samaritan University Hospital on Long Island, the outlet reported Friday.
Sinclair heard his crying son being treated in NICU and went to watch him through the nursery window, he told NBC New York. Although the curtain was largely drawn, Sinclair was able to capture video of her newborn baby just as a nurse lifted him, quickly turned him around and pinned him face down in the crib, the outlet reported. .
“It just broke me,” Sinclair told NBC New York. “I did not know what to do.”
He showed the video to his wife, who immediately confronted the nurse and shared the video with other hospital staff.
“I said to him, ‘I don’t want you to touch my child. You just slammed it,” Saravia recalled to NBC New York. “She said ‘Oh no, if you think I treated him badly or anything, I’m sorry.'”
A spokesperson for Catholic Health, which runs Good Samaritan University Hospital, said in a statement to Insider on Sunday that patient safety is “our primary concern.”
“Upon learning of this incident, prompt and immediate action was taken, including conducting an investigation and subsequently dismissing the individual involved. Additionally, we have reported the individual to the Department of Health for further investigation,” the statement shared with Insider reads.
The spokesperson added that it is standard practice for staff to draw the “neonatal ICU curtains to ensure privacy for patients and their families”.
While Nikko is home and doing well, her family remains shaken by the incident.
“I didn’t know what to do with myself. I didn’t sleep for about three days. It was really awful,” said Nikko’s grandmother, who asked to remain anonymous. News12 Long Island.
“If it wasn’t for God who sent me to watch over him, we would never have seen anything like this,” Sinclair told NBC New York. “It would have kept happening overnight, not just for him, but for the other babies as well.”
Detectives from the Suffolk County Police Special Victims Section are investigating, a department spokesperson told Insider.
A spokesperson for the New York Department of Health, which is also investigating the nurse, did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.
