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Then 22 year old Nadine Bourne had attempted to have an abortion at approximately 6 months into her pregnancy at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Bellingham, Washington. She arrived at Vancouver General Hospital on the evening of December 16, 1985 feverish with a rapid pulse. The ER doctor called in the gynecology resident, Dr. Kamal Jaroudi, who decided that Nadine was suffering from complications of a botched abortion.

It would seem the hospital staff underestimated Ximena's will to live, for she was born alive at 3:20 a.m. on December 17, 1985. She was 11-14 weeks premature, but still in good health. It is a proven fact that babies born up to 18 weeks premature can survive if given the proper medical treatment. Not all of them make it, but overall, the evidence supports that with the proper care, the survival rate is very high. So what did the hospital staff do with little Ximena?

Rather than place her in an incubator and begin medical treatment, nurses placed little Ximena in a small bucket called a "hat" and placed in her in a room where fetal remains are kept. This despite that fact that Ximena was moving her arms, kicking her legs and crying weakly, but still crying.

It would later come out in pretrial testimony that Dr. Jaroudi instructed nurses NOT to resuscitate her. A nurse checked on her approximately 26 minutes later and found her still clinging to life at which point she called nursing supervisor Joyce Hatherall. She arrived at 4:00 a.m. and found Ximena still alive, uncovered and in the bucket. Within three minutes a resuscitation team arrived at nurse Hatherall's call. They wrapped little Ximena in a blanket then placed her on a stainless steel counter, which lawyers for the child would later claim contributed to hypothermia.

Dr. Jaroudi was instructed by his supervisor by telephone to call the ITT (Infant Transport team) at B.C. Children's Hospital. Dr. Jaroudi neglected to mention WHICH hospital he was calling from when he placed the call to the team and it was not until 4:40 a.m. that they actually arrived. That was only the beginning of little Ximena's life. The rest of her life she will suffer from debilitating conditions.

Ximena is confined to a wheelchair and will be for the rest of her life. She suffers from cerebral palsy and has the mental capacity of a three year old. She will need constant care for the rest of her life.

Ximena was adopted by Bert and Margaret Renaerts who hired attorneys Thomas Berger of Vancouver and Charles Lugosi of Prince George. The family filed a lawsuit against VGH, several nurses and doctors, and Ximena's natural parents. The case was settled out of court for an undisclosed amount of money. One report stated that it would cost upwards of $10 million dollars to care for Ximena in her lifetime.

While the settlement eased the financial burden of caring for Ximena, it did not address the legal issues surrounding the negligence of the hospital staff, particularly Dr. Jaroudi and the nurses who followed his orders.

Several charges could have been filed, should have been filed. Statue 218 from the criminal code states that anyone who abandons or exposes a child under 10 "so that its life is or is likely to be endangered or its health is or is likely to be permanently injured." Section 219 is still more serious. It defines criminal negligence as "in omitting to do anything that is his duty to do, shows wanton or reckless disregard for lives or safety of other persons." And even deeper Section 221 states, "Every one who by criminal negligence causes bodily harm to another person is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 10 years."

The most serious charges however, would apply to Section 223 which deals strictly with homicide states that a child becomes human when "it has completely proceeded, in a living state, from the body of its mother.", as Ximena had. An attempted murder conviction under Section 239 carries a sentence of up to life imprisonment.

"Vancouver right-to-life activist Betty Green urges police to move quickly to investigate. "Obviously, for 40 minutes, the child was denied the care she was due," Mrs. Green says. What also bears investigating is whether the VGH has been the scene of other similar incidents which ended in the death of the baby. "It would be fascinating to know from hospital records how many other ex-fetuses were still alive when they went into that room," she says. Mrs. Green adds that doctors and nurses at hospitals that perform abortions are so steeped in the "abortion mentality" that they have been known to refer to babies who survive abortions as "fetuses ex- utero"-a phrase that denies the reality of a newborn's life outside the womb."

Dr. Van Andel says Dr. Jaroudi, a student from the Middle East, was a senior resident at the time of the incident, but left the college's register in 1988. The college has no record of his current residence. In fact, Dr. Jaroudi has been practicing at a hospital in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, for several years. It's unknown whether Dr. Jaroudi is still practicing at that same hospital or if he is perhaps employed in the United States somewhere. I don't know about you, but the thought of this man practicing medicine ANYWHERE is frightening.

It's fact that several people were negligent in the care of this infant, but the one perhaps the most responsible in this reporters opinion, is the biological mother who didn't care if her daughter lived or died and the doctor who felt the same.