A babysitter in Taipei has been charged with accidentally poisoning an infant after putting sedatives into the baby’s milk to keep him quiet, prosecutors said yesterday.
The woman in her 30s, surnamed Mao (毛), has contravened Criminal Code provisions on “causing injury,” the Taipei Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office said.
It recommended that she be given a heavy penalty in accordance with the Protection of Children and Youths Welfare and Rights Act (兒童及少年福利與權益保障法), because she “deliberately committed a crime against the child.”
Mao did not have a babysitter’s license, the office added.
The incident occurred in Mao’s home on April 4, after the baby’s mother left the nine-month-old in Mao’s care, prosecutors said.
Mao put a sedative drug she obtained from a hospital into the milk she prepared for the baby to put him to sleep, they said.
The boy’s mother later picked up the boy and took him home, but could not wake him up and took him to Shin Kong Hospital in Shilin District.
Doctors ran a blood test on the boy and found that he had been given a substance containing benzodiazepines, a type of sedative medication.
His mother called the police upon learning the diagnosis, prosecutors said.
The boy has since been treated and discharged from hospital, they added.
Benzodiazepines are a class of depressants used to treat conditions such as anxiety, insomnia and seizures.
Large doses could cause poisoning in infants, prosecutors said, citing a National Taiwan University Hospital report.
Prosecutors said that Mao, who had been caring for the baby since March and was paid NT$250 an hour, admitted putting sedatives into the boy’s milk to stop him crying.
Mao had been prescribed the drugs by Taipei City Hospital’s Kunming branch to treat an eating disorder, they said.
A Vietnamese migrant worker on Thursday won the NT$12 million (US$383,590) jackpot on a scratch-off lottery ticket she bought from a lottery shop in Changhua County’s Puyan Township (埔鹽), Taiwan Lottery Co said yesterday. The lottery winner, who is in her 30s and married, said she would continue to work in Taiwan and send her winnings to her family in Vietnam to improve their life. More Taiwanese and migrant workers have flocked to the lottery shop on Sec 2 of Jhangshuei Road (彰水路) to share in the luck. The shop owner, surnamed Chen (陳), said that his shop has been open for just
Global bodies should stop excluding Taiwan for political reasons, President William Lai (賴清德) told Pope Francis in a letter, adding that he agrees war has no winners. The Vatican is one of only 12 countries to retain formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan, and Taipei has watched with concern efforts by Beijing and the Holy See to improve ties. In October, the Vatican and China extended an accord on the appointment of Catholic bishops in China for four years, pointing to a new level of trust between the two parties. Lai, writing to the pope in response to the pontiff’s message on Jan. 1’s
TAKE BREAKS: A woman developed cystitis by refusing to get up to use the bathroom while playing mahjong for fear of disturbing her winning streak, a doctor said People should stand up and move around often while traveling or playing mahjong during the Lunar New Year holiday, as prolonged sitting can lead to cystitis or hemorrhoids, doctors said. Yuan’s General Hospital urologist Lee Tsung-hsi (李宗熹) said that he treated a 63-year-old woman surnamed Chao (趙) who had been sitting motionless and holding off going to the bathroom, increasing her risk of bladder infection. Chao would drink beverages and not urinate for several hours while playing mahjong with friends and family, especially when she was on a winning streak, afraid that using the bathroom would ruin her luck, he said. She had
MUST REMAIN FREE: A Chinese takeover of Taiwan would lead to a global conflict, and if the nation blows up, the world’s factories would fall in a week, a minister said Taiwan is like Prague in 1938 facing Adolf Hitler; only if Taiwan remains free and democratic would the world be safe, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Francois Wu (吳志中) said in an interview with Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. The ministry on Saturday said Corriere della Sera is one of Italy’s oldest and most read newspapers, frequently covers European economic and political issues, and that Wu agreed to an interview with the paper’s senior political analyst Massimo Franco in Taipei on Jan. 3. The interview was published on Jan. 26 with the title “Taiwan like Prague in 1938 with Hitler,” the ministry
RSS