Compensation for hospitalized baby

Families claim damages for hospital-swapped babies

02/12/2014

In 1994, two babies were exchanged after their birth in a hospital in southern France - a horror idea of ​​all parents. Only after ten years was the suspicion confirmed by the parents still in the clinic. A nurse had swapped the two girls who were being treated in an incubator without realizing it. Now the families claim more than 12 million euros in damages. A civil court in Grasse dealt with the case on Tuesday.

Only ten years after the birth confirmed the suspicion that the babies were reversed
Meanwhile, the two exchanged girls are 20 years old. Both families did not want a return of the children, as a DNA test ten years ago, the certainty that the children are not the physical.

Even at the clinic shortly after birth, the mothers had expressed the suspicion that possibly not their own child was brought back after a treatment in the incubator. The length of the hair was noticed both. However, the hospital staff reassured the women at the time, explaining that the changes were due to the heat lamps in the chest where the girls were being treated for jaundice.

The DNA test came later, however, because the father of one of the children even after ten years still believed not to be the biological father. There was a lack of similarities and the girl's skin color was a bit darker than the other family members. After the investigation confirmed that he was not actually the biological father of the girl, it turned out that even the mother could not be the biological of the child. Investigations revealed that the other family lived very close by. Both agreed to a meeting and so the birth parents and children saw each other for the first time after ten years.

Claim for damages
The parents decided to file a civil suit against the clinic in Cannes and the nurse after a criminal complaint was unsuccessful. For the exchanged girls, they each demand three million euros in damages. In addition, 1.5 million euros for the parents and another 750,000 euros for each sibling. The verdict is expected on 10 February 2015.

Babies are very rarely reversed
Basically, in the case of the two swapped girls in southern France, an individual case must be assumed. In many countries, after birth, all children receive a small bracelet with their name around the wrist, so that confusion should be ruled out.

In a further case from 2011, a maternity hospital in Russia was sentenced to pay 140,000 euros in damages, as in the clinic twelve years earlier, two babies were accidentally reversed. At that time, the confusion was revealed after one of the parent couples divorced and the man did not want to pay any alimony. He claimed that the child was not his. A genetic test brought certainty and also revealed that the mother was not genetically related to the child. Research then led to the biological parents. (Ag)