THE Ministry of Labour, Human Services and Social Security has launched an investigation into the abandoning of one-year-old Lilly Wong by her mother in a city taxi.
The Ministry says that the Probation and Welfare Department of the Ministry must take full responsibility for its failure to provide timely intervention into the situation. Minister within the Ministry of Labour, Human Services and Social Security, Ms. Bibi Shadick said the officer demonstrated lack of initiative and poor judgment in this situation.
Officials of the Ministry are assessing the situation to recommend appropriate action.
Efforts were made to contact relatives of the child's mother, but this proved futile. A Convalescent Home has been identified and is willing to keep the child, and efforts will also be made to ensure that the mother of the child receives counselling.
Shadick said the mother loves her child and that is ground enough for her to keep her child. However, because of the circumstances regarding the abandoning of the child other help may be critical to ensuring both child and mother are properly cared for.
The mother is allegedly employed as a teacher with a City school but the details regarding her attendance at school are sketchy.
Reports are that the child's mother is unstable and is normally seen around the city with her child and seems to have no permanent place of abode.
It is alleged that the mother visited the Ministry on a number of occasions soliciting help, but was on some occasions given five hundred dollars as monetary assistance.
It is the Ministry's policy that no monetary gifts, no matter how small, are to be distributed by officials of the Ministry except through the Difficult Circumstances Department.
Provisions will be made for crisis intervention and professional training for employees of the Probation and Welfare Department of the Ministry.
The Minister said her Ministry is interested in the welfare of the nation's children and supervises orphanages and other children's homes to seriously address children's welfare.
The improved capacity of the Welfare Department with trained social workers is to ensure its effective functioning. It is unfortunate that there are still cases where children are disadvantaged for one reason or another. This, however, does not mean that the Ministry is not doing its work. It fulfils its mandate by providing valuable services to all Guyanese. Minister Shadick said she is happy that matters of this nature are reported and brought to the public's attention. However, she would wish that the good deeds the Ministry does to help thousands of people in the society are also highlighted.
Shadick said her Ministry has nothing to hide and is committed to the welfare of all those it serves. (GINA).