Unable to pay hospital, dad abandons newborn girl

A Jiangsu Province man has been sentenced to one year of probation for abandoning his newborn daughter last year in a greenbelt in Yangpu district, where she died soon after, the district court said Wednesday.

The father, Liu Baoguo, a local vegetable vendor, was found guilty of abandonment, according to a press release from Yangpu District People's Court.

His daughter was found dead around 8:30 pm on June 12 near Xiangyin Road in Yangpu district, according to a report in the Oriental Morning Post. She was taken to a nearby hospital where the doctor found that she had been born premature. She weighed 1.35 kilograms. Despite treatment, she died in the hospital.

Liu turned himself in to police after he read about her death in local media, according to a press release from the Yangpu District People's Prosecutor's Office.

Liu abandoned the child, his third, because he could not afford the 60,000 yuan ($9,660) in long-term medical care that she needed after she was born premature, the press release said.

Liu's wife, A Li, gave birth three months early on the advice of her doctor because she suffered from hypertension and diabetes.

Under the current medical system, a hospital can refuse treatment unless it is an emergency and the patient cannot afford the cost, said Xue Di, a hospital management professor in the School of Public Health at Fudan University. In those cases, the government subsidizes the hospital for the emergency care.

Xue told the Global Times that it was unclear whether the infant girl's condition qualified as an emergency.

The prosecutor's office decided against charging Liu with murder because they concluded that he never intended for the child to die, the press release said. It noted that he left the infant with two bags of oxygen in a crowded area where there was a good chance she would be found.

The court sentenced Liu to one year in prison with a one-year reprieve, meaning that he won't have to serve time if he completes probation.