A seven-year-old boy with cerebral palsy was found abandoned at a hospital in eastern China (10 April).
He was discovered by police officers in Nanjing, crying and unsteady on his feet, as reported by Jiangsu TV.
They noticed a piece of cloth sewn on the back of his coat containing 1,000 yuan (S$200) and a letter inside another piece of cloth sewn near a pocket.
“We are from a remote village and this kid was born with brain disorders,” his unnamed mother wrote in the unsigned letter. “Doctors diagnosed him with cerebral palsy.”
In the note, she said that she have sought aid from the local government but no one appeared to care. She did not mention where the family lived but said that the boy’s father was a migrant worker who did not return home for Lunar New Year due to the debts they were unable to settle.
She also wrote that she had recently been diagnosed with depression and had not slept well for two years. Due to the financial and psychological stress of raising her son in his condition, she had to abandon him.
“On many occasions, I’ve thought of taking him to commit suicide together, but I couldn’t do that,” she wrote. “His eyes told me he didn’t know anything about this world.
“Today I am begging good-hearted people to help my boy by sending him to an orphanage.”
Surveillance video from the hospital showed a masked woman accompanying the boy. She left through a back door after sitting with him for a while, police said.
An officer told the TV station that the woman could be charged with crimes of abandonment if she did not contact the authorities soon.
This is not the first time parents took to the desperate measures in China due to their children’s special needs. Earlier in January this year, a Chinese housewife drowned her son that she suspected had cerebral palsy to spare him a life of hardship. Last year in March, a Chinese couple found an abandoned baby girl with cerebral palsy at a hospital and took care of her ever since.
