I know the story of a mother who, after giving birth, asked her husband not to lose sight of her newborn baby for a second, out of fear that it might be changed. Of course, this woman, my mother, gave birth more than 40 years ago and the procedures were different.
Now we know a story that looks like the plot of a movie of crossed lives , but sadly it is real life. It happened in 2002 at the San Millán de Logroño public hospital, when they exchanged a newborn with another baby born hours later.
Living someone else’s life
The babies were born the same day, in the same hospital, five hours apart. One weighed 2,270 kilos at birth, and the other 2,290 kilos. Being underweight, both were admitted to the hospital’s incubator area, where they were exchanged due to “human error .” From that moment, each of them lived with a family that was not their own, living a life that did not touch them.
They each lived their life without knowing anything for 15 years. Until, according to LaRioja.com who released the story, one of the girls had to undergo a DNA test in 2017 with her father, who did not take care of her.
The test revealed that the man was not her genetic father , and neither was who she believed her mother to be, who died in 2018. In addition, it came to light that her blood type did not match the one recorded in her medical history either. . A legal process was then initiated to find out his identity and by pulling the thread, the exchange was discovered.
The girl lived a life that she did not have to live in a family that went through great financial difficulties. Since 2003, she has been at risk, and her grandmother had to take care of the girl due to the inability of her parents to raise her.
An irreparable mistake
The Ministry of Health of La Rioja has admitted that there was an error , but I do not know who was responsible or how exactly it happened.
There is a judicial process underway for the confusion of identities, in which the complainant claims three million euros for having grown up all these years in an environment completely different from that of her biological family. For its part, Salud offers a compensation of 215,000 euros.
The lawyer José Sáez-Morga considers that the damage produced is “immeasurable, continuous and for life” and that “this person is never going to get rid of the stigma of this confusion.” What is intended is “to strengthen their economic personality in order to have a secure future”, even if what happened “is not repairable.”
New DNA tests are now being awaited to prove that the parents of the other baby would be the biological parents of the complainant girl. The other girl, meanwhile, has not spoken.
How can such a big mistake happen?
Today it would be practically impossible for such an error to happen, since the methods of identifying newborns in hospitals are more complex and rigorous.
Upon admission to the hospital, an identification bracelet is placed on the mother and when the baby is born, a copy of that bracelet with the same data is placed on the newborn’s ankle or wrist, in the presence of the parents. Both contain an identification number that is included in the history, as well as in the filial identification documentation.
In addition, in hospitals a sample of cord blood from the newborn is taken for DNA and, by law, the fingerprint of the newborn is taken along with that of the mother, either by ink or with biometric systems.
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