Hospital punished for newborn fall and burn accidents
Newborn crying deemed abuse... evidence destruction and document forgery
Prosecutors reopen case sent by police as negligence offense
Hospital officials who collectively concealed the fact of newborn abuse by a nursing assistant have been brought to trial in large numbers. This is the very hospital where staff were punished after a newborn fall accident in 2022 was covered up and then exposed.
The prosecution initially received the case from the police, who had sent it on charges of professional negligence causing injury. After a year of additional investigation, the nursing assistant was indicted on charges of child abuse. During the trial, the prosecution uncovered further evidence of organized attempts to destroy evidence and conceal the case, achieving these investigative results.
On the 1st, the Financial and Economic Crime Division of the Western Branch of the Busan District Prosecutors' Office (Chief Prosecutor Jang Wook-hwan) announced that on the previous day, they had arrested and indicted A (56), the administrative director of an obstetrics and gynecology hospital in Busan, and B (45), the head nurse, on charges including evidence forgery, violation of the Medical Service Act, perjury, and subornation of perjury. They also indicted 10 others without detention, including the hospital’s representative director, hospital director, doctors, and seven nursing assistants including C (49), the nursing assistant previously indicted on child abuse charges. Among the 13 people investigated, one former employee who actively cooperated with the investigation was granted a suspension of prosecution.
According to the prosecution, nursing assistant C was indicted on May 27, 2022, for allegedly taking a newborn to a CCTV blind spot on February 7, 2021, when the baby was crying and fussy, pulling and twisting the baby’s ear causing injury.
In court, C claimed, "It was not abuse but an accident during bath time when I was removing vernix (the substance covering the fetus’s skin) with a cotton swab, which caused the wound."
The baby’s parents have expressed their grievance from immediately after the incident through the trial, stating, "For three years, all hospital officials have been concealing the incident."
During the trial, the prosecution discovered discrepancies between the nursing records visible on CCTV footage and those submitted to investigative authorities, prompting a renewed investigation.
The prosecution conducted two searches of the hospital and found evidence that, under the direction of A and B at the time of the incident, blood-stained baby clothes were discarded and nursing records were forged.
Through prompt searches and forensic work on the hospital and related parties, the prosecution secured and analyzed forged charts, messages exchanged among accomplices over three years, and over 700 minutes of recorded phone calls.
In this process, multiple pieces of evidence were found showing the organized concealment of newborn abuse, enabling the prosecution to obtain detailed statements from 14 involved parties and uncover the full scope of the crime.
In particular, head nurse B was found to have shared a document analyzing CCTV footage by the minute in a hospital shared folder, then instructed nursing assistants including the abuser C to manipulate the incident time by referring to specific times, saying, "Let's alter the occurrence time to make it look like the accident happened then."
Additionally, messages sent by B to other nursing assistants included statements such as, "The worst case is... reinvestigation into the organized concealment plus conspiracy. That’s the worst-case scenario," and "We’ve already missed all the timing to cross the line... We’ve already conspired, kept silent, and concealed everything," indicating the hospital officials’ attempts at organized crime concealment, the prosecution said.
A prosecution official stated, "Hospital officials even accompanied key witnesses to lawyers’ offices right before witness examinations to coordinate their testimonies, committing perjury. The concealment orders were given in the order of hospital director, administrative director, doctors and head nurse, then nursing assistants. Due to the closed and hierarchical nature of the hospital organization, these concealment acts went undiscovered for three years."
The prosecution plans to request the court to consolidate this case with the ongoing trial of C’s child abuse case for joint hearing.
The hospital, which operates both an obstetrics and gynecology clinic and a postpartum care center, has previously caused controversy due to similar incidents. Head nurse B was involved in both cases.
In November 2022, a 13-day-old baby fell from a treatment table and was injured. The hospital informed the parents late, and three hospital officials were tried on charges of professional negligence causing injury and violations of the Maternal and Child Health Act, receiving six-month prison sentences.
In 2014, a hospital official was fined for professional negligence causing injury related to a newborn burn incident, and head nurse B was punished for perjury during the trial.
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