Did someone steal a newborn from "Magee Hospital" as of June 17, 2022? No, that's not true: The only similarly named hospital that specializes in labor and delivery found in the American Hospital Directory is UPMC Women's Magee Hospital in Pittsburgh, and a representative of UPMC/University of Pittsburgh Schools of the Health Sciences told Lead Stories on June 20, 2022: "There is no validity to the claim."
The claim appeared in a Facebook post on June 19, 2022. It says:
ATTENTION: check on your people if they had a baby at Magee Hospital in the last two days a new born baby is missing and there is a cover up going on .... Mother is in recovery and the baby is missing.
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Mon Jun 20 19:19:2022 UTC)
This post cited no source or attribution to confirm the validity of this claim.
An online search produced this 2012 CBS News article, titled, "Abducted Baby Reunited With Mother At Magee-Women's Hospital," which revealed that a newborn baby did go missing from this hospital -- 10 years before the June 19, 2022, post.
Rick Pietzak, project director of crisis communications at UPMC and University of Pittsburgh Schools of the Health Sciences, told Lead Stories in a phone call on June 20, 2022:
This Facebook rumor is false. There is no validity to the claim.
Cara Cruz, a public information officer for Pittsburgh Public Safety, told Lead Stories in an email on June 20, 2022:
Pittsburgh Public Safety PIOs were not alerted to this and cannot speak to the veracity of it.
Lead Stories debunked a similar baseless report concerning a Tennessee hospital in June 2022. You can see that story here.
