Couple given 15 days detention for abandoning son at hospital for three years

A local court in Beijing has sentenced a couple to 15 days detention after they left their only son at a hospital in the capital city for three years without paying his medical bills, the Beijing Morning Post reports.

The couple, from Inner Mongolia, took their son for to Fuwai Cardiovascular Hospital in March 2012 as an 11-month-old as he suffered from congenital heart disease. The boy was operated on and considered fit to go home in December of that year, but his parents had since returned to their hometown without ever visiting him.

The couple claimed they could not afford the medical expenses, and lodged an appeal after a court ruled last year that they should take their son home and pay their debt to the hospital.

Nurses at the hospital had been looking after the boy, who now calls some of them “mom”, the report said.