BULAWAYO- Two new mums had their babies swapped at the United Bulawayo Hospitals due to negligence by hospital staff.
A mother from Cowdray Park who delivered a baby boy by Caesarean-section had her son swapped for a girl after the two babies were taken for cleaning shortly after birth. The baby girl’s mum is from Esigodini.
The persistence of the mother who gave birth to a boy unravelled the swap after she paid for a DNA test at a Bulawayo private lab which proved her instincts right, enabling her to confront hospital authorities.
Zephaniah Dlamini, head of the applied genetics testing centre at the National University of Science and Technology, said they were approached by the hospital to clear up the mystery and they were able to establish conclusively that the two babies were swapped.
The news was so devastating to the Esigodini couple that had been given the baby boy that police had to be brought in to compel them to submit to DNA testing.
Dlamini told The Chronicle: “The two women were in the same ward at UBH and delivered around the same time.
“One woman asserted that her child was a boy after she was given a girl after cleaning, but the other mother also adamant that the boy was hers.”
A source close to the Cowdray Park mum told The Chronicle that a day before delivery, a scan had confirmed that she was expecting a boy. When she brought this up with the nurse who cleaned up the babies, the nurse “dismissed her concerns, suggesting that the effects of the anaesthesia from the Caesarean section was clouding her memory.”
The two mothers have been reunited with their children.
UBH CEO William Busumani declined to comment, stating that he does not discuss “patient information.”
