Chinese man jailed for dumping baby in shop bin
July 15th, 2009 - 11:55 am ICT by IANSHong Kong, July 15 (DPA) A Chinese medicine practitioner was Wednesday beginning a five-year jail sentence for dumping a newborn baby in a waste bin in a Hong Kong supermarket.
Tsui Chi-lam claimed he thought the prematurely-born baby was dead after a woman gave birth unexpectedly in the bathroom of his clinic in November last year.
The 67-year-old wrapped the baby girl with her umbilical cord still attached in newspapers and plastic bags and dumped her in the bin at a supermarket in the city.
But the baby, born 10 weeks prematurely, was still alive and was discovered by a supermarket worker who saw something moving inside the plastic bags and thought it was an animal.
The baby girl survived despite suffering from hypothermia, oxygen deprivation and a congenital heart defect.
Doctors said she had been born the day she was discovered after a pregnancy of about 31 weeks.
Tsui was arrested after police identified him by studying closed-circuit television video in the supermarket.
Five human placentas and 12 regulated poisons, including drugs for inducing labour, were found in Tsui’s clinic refrigerator.
He appeared in court for sentencing after pleading guilty to abandoning a child and possessing poisons in his clinic.
According to a court report in the South China Morning Post, Tsui was a repeat offender who had been fined and jailed on previous occasions.
Chinese medicine is widely used in the city of seven million but practitioners are now regulated by law and must be registered before they are allowed to practise.
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Tags: baby girl, chi lam, china morning post, chinese man, chinese medicine, chinese medicine practitioner, closed circuit television, congenital heart defect, inducing labour, jail sentence, newborn baby, oxygen deprivation, placentas, plastic bags, poisons, repeat offender, south china morning, south china morning post, umbilical cord, waste bin