CHENNAI: An unnoticed mistake caused by a midwife at Chennai Corporation’s maternity hospital at Shenoy Nagar had forced two new mothers to claim a fairer girl as their child.
After a drama of claims and counter claims by both the parents for a few hours on Saturday, timely intervention by the Corporation Commissioner Rajesh Lakhoni settled the whole issue amicably.
According to sources, Kavitha (21) of Vanagaram and Anitha (19) of Aminjikarai delivered female babies on Friday. The babies were provided token numbers (4 and 5) and were kept in separate enclosures, but when a midwife took the babies to clean, she mistakenly swapped the babies while leaving them back in the incubators.
When the mothers were informed about the incident, they refused to accept the Corporation officials’ version and created a ruckus claiming the fairer baby as theirs.
Sensing trouble, hospital officials convinced the parents by saying DNA tests would be conducted to identify the babies’ real parents.
Kavita told reporters that the incident happened due to the callousness of the Corporation staff and now they were put to mental agony.
Corporation Commissioner Rajesh Lakhoni who came to know about the incident rushed to the spot and ordered the civic staff to conduct blood tests on the parents and children to get a confirmation.
Simultaneously, blood samples of the parents were also tested in a private lab to cross verify the Corporation’s blood test report. A couple (Anitha and Saravana Kumar) had O positive blood group and another (Kavitha and Senthil Kumar) had A positive and B positive respectively.
The impasse ended with the O positive baby being handed over to O positive parents and AB positive infant to its respective parents.
“The parents agreed to the scientific settlement. They have signed agreement letters also,” B Charumathi, district family welfare officer, Chennai Corporation said.