Police arrest 'nurse' after baby theft
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Chinese police on Tuesday arrested a woman who was suspected of dressing as a nurse and stealing a newborn baby at a hospital in the northwestern Shaanxi Province.
The baby girl, born on Nov. 20, was in good health and expected to be reunited with her parents after a DNA test verified the relationship, said Bai Shaokang, deputy head of the provincial public security department.
Police arrested Ge Qianru, 20, at 6 p.m. Tuesday, when she took the baby to a hospital in Dongguan, a manufacturing base in the southern Guangdong Province.
"The baby had a cold and was feverish," said Huang Lin, a police officer from Xi'an, who had pursued the suspect in Dongguan.
Ge allegedly admitted she had taken the infant at the First Hospital Affiliated to the Xi'an Jiaotong University at 5 a.m. on Nov. 21, only 15 hours after the baby was born.
She is alleged to have donned a stolen nurse uniform, and told the new mother she was taking the baby for a test. The mother, Zhang Lanfang, 32, waited for three hours, before realizing her baby was lost.
Video from the hospital's surveillance camera showed the "nurse" took the baby to a bathroom. When she came out again, she had changed into her own clothes and left the hospital with the baby in her arms.
Police in Xi'an published the footage and offered a 10,000-yuan reward for information leading to the woman's arrest and the baby's return.
On Nov. 28, police identified the woman as Ge, a peasant woman from Meixian County in Shaanxi, who had worked in the southern Guangdong Province for two years.
Ge allegedly went to Dongguan, a manufacturing base in Guangdong, with the baby on Nov. 21.
She allegedly told police she wanted to take the baby as her own.
"She said she was six months pregnant when she broke up with her boyfriend and had an induced abortion," said Huang. "When they reconciled, she regretted it and desperately wanted a baby."
Tuesday's health check showed the baby weighed 2.8 kilograms and was healthy. "I'm waiting for the result of the DNA test and hope to take her home soon," said her father, Yan Xiaohong. "My wife is out of her mind."
The case aroused widespread panic in Xi'an, and the First Hospital Affiliated to Xi'an Jiaotong University has deployed two more security guards outside maternity wards and allows entry to patients and one family member at a time.
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