A SHENZHEN woman complained that her 6-month-old daughter’s leg had been scalded by a nanny, but the household service company that recruited the nanny has been avoiding taking responsibility for what happened, a Guangdong TV news program reported Tuesday.

    The woman, surnamed Chen, said that she had paid over 4,000 yuan (US$580) to a household service company in Meilin each month for the nanny, who accidentally scalded her daughter Nov. 16 last year.

    The baby girl was diagnosed with deep scald wounds with 4 percent of her skin burned. She might need to undergo a skin-graft operation when she gets older.

    Chen said that she was aware that the nanny hadn’t hurt her daughter on purpose, so she allowed the nanny to take care of her daughter at the hospital for a while, but before this year’s Spring Festival in late January, the nanny quit her job and returned to her hometown without taking her final two months’ salary.

    Chen was worried that the scald wounds might influence her daughter’s ability to walk, because the girl is now mainly using her unharmed leg when she crawls, instead of using both legs evenly. A doctor said that if the girl keeps crawling like this, it might affect her brain development and ability to balance in the future.

    The household service company’s spokesperson, surnamed Wang, said that he didn’t think that the nanny or the company should be held responsible for what happened to the baby, because Chen had hired a nanny instead of a baby-sitter from the company.

    However, Chen said that the company had promised that the nanny could not only do chores but also take care of her child when she signed the contract with the company.

    The head of the community work station in Meilinyicun, where the domestic service company is located, said that the company has received complaints from many residents, and the work station has disqualified the company from providing services at the community’s nursing home.

    According to a lawyer, even though the nanny wasn’t obliged to provide child care, she should have been careful about the child’s safety when she was cooking. The lawyer said that the nanny should be held responsible for taking the child into the kitchen and exposing her to danger. (Zhang Yang)