A frenzied investigation is now underway to determine the whereabouts of a baby, who, up to Friday, was thought to have been lying dead in a morgue in Manchester.

Now, a DNA test has proven that the body of the baby at Lyn’s Funeral Home in Mandeville is not that of the baby born to Pansy Campbell of Gimme-me-bit, Clarendon and Roy McLean on August 20, 2002.

The parents, who had insisted from the beginning that the dead baby was not theirs, are now demanding answers as to the fate of their child, dubbed “Baby Pansy”.

Health Minister John Junor has apologised to the parents of the missing child and has ordered a full investigation into the matter.

“Baby Pansy”, born prematurely at the May Pen Hospital, was transferred to the Mandeville Regional Hospital shortly after with a condition known as necrotizing enterocolitis, an infection of the bowels.

When Pansy Campbell went to the Mandeville Hospital on Monday, September 2 to visit her baby, she was shocked to learn that the infant had died the previous day, particularly since she was of the impression that the child was doing very well as she held and fed her two days before.

“She looked alright, mi feed har at three o’clock,” Campbell related the story in her own words on RJR’s current affairs programme, Beyond the Headlines last Friday. “When de nurse tell me say a time fi mi go home, mi ask har if me can stay an she say no, me haffi go home. And when me go dey de Monday morning, de doctor meet me and say, ‘Mom I’m very sorry, Little Pansy is dead’.”

The distraught mother was further traumatised when, according to her, even as she was crying “a lady come to me and say me must sign this paper (accepting the death of the baby). But me say no, me can’t sign it without my boyfriend there”.

Campbell’s next stop was Lyn’s Funeral Home to which the dead infant had been sent.

“When me reach Lyn’s Funeral Home me say: ‘Excuse me Sar, do you have a body here by the name of Little Pansy?’ And im ask who send you over here, dem nuh know say dem no fi sen yu over here?”

With that she claimed that she was denied permission to see the body.

Calvin Lyn, manager of Lyn’s Funeral Home, confirmed to the Sunday Observer that Campbell was initially denied permission to see the child, but only because she was not properly identified as the mother, he claimed.

“The mother came and asked to see the baby,” he explained. “My daughter said, we don’t know you… She got abusive and left. Sometime passed and then she came back after she reported it to the police. Eventually the police came and saw the body.”

When Campbell eventually got to see the body she was shocked — it was, as far as she was concerned, not her baby… not the same complexion… no sign of the telltale birthmark on the abdomen.

For the father, McLean, this was confirmation of his deepest fear — that his child might not have died as the hospital had claimed. It was for that reason he explained that he instructed his partner not to sign the document that would have confirmed the parents’ acceptance that the child had died.

“When she come home and tell me say de baby died, me ask if dem mek har see de baby an she say no, so me ask how you sure say a fi you baby?” he recalled.

The saga of Baby Pansy has set the Mandeville Hospital and Lyn’s Funeral Home at odds.

Dr Michael Coombs, acting regional director of the Southern Regional Health Authority (SRHA), which manages the Mandeville Regional Hospital, insisted to the Sunday Observer that the hospital did not err in its handling of the matter, and that the institution was certain that the body handed over to Lyn’s Funeral Home was that of Baby Pansy.

“The body was properly tagged and transported to the morgue and was entered in their log confirming that the tagged body indicating the infant to be Pansy Campbell was received,” he said.

Lyn is also insisting that his company was not at fault, as it followed the prescribed procedure.

Explaining the procedure to the Sunday Observer, he said there were two record books, one for adults and the other for babies, and that the information recorded is what is sent over on the attached tag by the hospital.

“The fact is that the baby came to us with a tag and that’s the body that has been with us since September,” he insisted.

The parents’ belief that the child tagged as Baby Pansy was not their child led to a long and frustrating quest to have a DNA test done to settle the matter.

With the hospital refusing to undertake the test, the RJR Communications Group eventually offered to finance the procedure.

The proposal was accepted by the parents and on May 22, chief medical officer at the May Pen Hospital, Dr Winston Dawes, took tissue samples from the child’s body and had them sent abroad for testing.

The results reportedly returned a negative result, throwing the health authorities into a tailspin.

Asked by the Sunday Observer about his confidence in the test, Dawes asserted that there was “no doubt regarding the legitimacy of the results of this DNA; it confirms that this is not the child of Pansy Campbell”.

Health Minister Junor has ordered a thorough investigation into the matter to unearth the truth. Even before the results of that investigation are in, however, the minister has concluded that the parents of the missing baby were not treated in a charitable manner.

“We will have to look very seriously at who it is that she dealt with and have some sort of disciplinary action taken and some other measures because I gather too that the funeral parlour personnel were not as forthcoming as they should be… and it is quite possible what has led to their own concern, that maybe their baby is not dead. The treatment that has been meted out to them would raise doubts in any reasonable mind,” he said on Beyond the Headlines.

Which leaves the question hanging: Where is Baby Pansy?

Lyn offers up an intriguing possibility: “Two babies came over on the same date. I’m not saying that they tagged them wrongfully, but the body of that other baby is still in the fridge. Nobody has come to claim that other body,” he told the Sunday Observer.

A medical source told the Sunday Observer that it would probably require another DNA test on that other body to settle the matter.

Pansy Campbell is not ready to accept that as the possible fate of the baby to whom she gave birth 10 months ago.

“Me still don’t tink say im dead because I leff im a hearty, hearty baby,” she said, her voice full of renewed hope.