A 19-year-old woman is seeking €3 million (£2.5 million) in damages from a regional health department in northern Spain after being accidentally swapped with another baby at birth. The mix-up occurred in a hospital in La Rioja in 2002, when both newborns were placed in incubators due to low birth weight.
The error, attributed to “human error” by health authorities, was discovered four years ago through a DNA test. The woman, raised by a woman she believed to be her grandmother, learned she was not biologically related to her supposed mother after a paternity dispute triggered genetic testing.
An investigation by the regional health authority concluded that only one other baby could have been involved in the switch. The other woman, now 19, has been informed of the mistake, according to local newspaper La Rioja.
Regional health chief Sara Alba stated that the systems at the time were less computerised and that such an error could not happen again. The complainant’s lawyer, José Sáez Morga, described the negligence as “so serious that it speaks for itself.”
