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‘Don’t you believe the monitor?’ she asked.
He smiled as he took the stethoscope. ‘I like to do things the old-fashioned way,’ he said. The monitor reading said a pulse of one-forty and an oxygen saturation of ninety-eight per cent. This baby was doing fine.
He listened for a few seconds, checking the lungs, making sure the baby hadn’t inhaled anything untoward during delivery, then listening to the heart, checking for any heart murmurs or any other abnormality. He hoped Arissa couldn’t see the beads of sweat breaking out on his forehead. An abandoned baby, albeit in a safe place. This was bringing back so many memories for him—of a baby that wasn’t healthy and pink like this one.
The baby let out an angry yelp as he lifted the stethoscope away from its chest. He did one final check. ‘Well, she seems like a perfectly healthy little girl.’ He inadvertently tucked the stethoscope into his back pocket. ‘I just hope mum is doing so well.’ His stomach squirmed as he said those words.
Arissa turned her eyes to Lim, who gave them both a nod. ‘I’ll put the word out. You okay?’ he asked.
Arissa nodded as she wrapped the baby back up and put her to her shoulder. ‘I think we’ll be good. I’ll take her back to the hospital and get her admitted and fed.’
Lim unlocked the door to the fire and rescue station and came back out a few minutes later with a car seat in his hand. He nodded towards them both. ‘I’ll leave you to it. Will let you know if we hear anything.’
He climbed into his black car and disappeared into the distance. Philippe turned to Arissa, his mind whirling. He pointed to the red panel on the fire station. ‘What on earth is this?’
Arissa tossed her car keys towards him. ‘It’s a safe haven. We set it up last year. Someplace safe that a woman can leave her baby. No questions. No prosecutions. An alarm goes off as soon as the panel is opened.’ She shook her head as he frowned and looked above the panel. ‘Not at the station,’ she said and pointed to her belt. ‘To our pagers. There’s always a doctor and a member of the fire and rescue crew who have the pagers. One, or both of us, aim to get here within five minutes.’
Philippe was still surprised. ‘How many babies does this happen to?’ Why hadn’t he heard of this before? This was exactly the kind of thing he needed to know about. Ideas were already forming in his head.
Arissa gave a shrug. ‘There’s only been three since we started. But having a safe haven to leave a baby is organised in lots of places.’ For a second he thought something flickered across her face but she pressed her lips together, then started talking again. ‘When I was a little girl, there was a baby left outside the old clinic. It was there all night. The clinic isn’t staffed overnight and I’m not sure that people knew that. Anyway, the baby nearly died. My mother told me about it. Everyone was upset. They never found out whose child it was. But the story stayed with me. And over the years I’ve often thought it should be something that we should start here.’ There was something in the way she said the words that sounded a little off. From the little he knew of her, Arissa normally seemed quite comfortable, but those words had come out hard and stiff.
But Philippe was frozen to the spot as the memories flooded through him again. So many things about this were familiar. Only a few weeks ago something similar had happened in Corinez. But Corinez had a different climate from Temur Sapora. The baby left in Corinez had suffered from hypothermia. It had been touch and go. Philippe had been on duty. He’d spent the next two days trying to revive the child and had failed. He’d never lost a child before and it had moved him in ways he’d never expected. It had seemed such a random act. And it had enforced for him even more the glaring need for free maternal healthcare in Corinez. Had the mother not presented at hospital because she couldn’t afford to pay the bill? Maybe she had no help at home. Maybe she hadn’t known she was pregnant, or hadn’t told anyone. Whatever the reasons were, try as he might, he hadn’t been able to track her down to ensure her safety. He’d asked questions around the hospital. It hadn’t been the first abandoned baby—but it had been the first who’d been exposed to adverse weather conditions. Maybe it was time to set up a scheme like they had in Temur Sapora?
