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Infant abduction prompts hospitals to re-evaluate security measures

Healthcare Security Weekly, March 19, 2007

Hospitals across the country are re-examining their security measures and emergency procedures after an infant abduction in Texas.

That case had a happy ending when police returned the infant to her mother after she was kidnapped from the maternity unit at Covenant Lakeside Hospital in Lubbock on March 10. A woman, dressed in scrubs and posing as a hospital employee, went into the hospital room and told the family that she needed to take the baby for some tests, according to news reports. The woman fled the hospital with the three-day-old baby hidden in a large purse.

Following a national Amber-Alert, police recovered the infant in Clovis, New Mexico the next day and arrested a 21-year-old woman. The Covenant Medical Center has stepped up security after the incident. "I think that clearly we need to take security to a higher standard. This individual was pretty sophisticated or at least had knowledge of what happens in healthcare institutions. We're not going to rest until we take it up a notch," Senior Vice President Gwen Stafford told KCBD-TV in Lubbock. Newborns at Covenant are tagged with a security bracelet, which was reportedly removed from the kidnapped infant and set off an alarm. However, the woman was able to flee in a red pickup truck.

Other hospitals are also scrutinizing their security. The staff at University Medical Center in Lubbock planned 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. 

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