Tran Thi Hong Cam from Tu Nghia District in the central province of Quang Ngai was shocked to discover that the baby daughter she had given birth to on December 7 had been switched to a male baby by hospital staff.
She was handed a baby boy while the birth certificate of her child showed that her baby was a girl child.   

Cam said she was taken to the Quang Ngai General Hospital in the province and gave birth to a daughter on December 7.

She later found out that the hospital had mistakenly dressed her baby in some other child’s clothes.

When she completed the formalities to leave the hospital, she discovered the difference in the gender statement on the birth certificate and noticed the baby she was carrying was a male child.

Hong Cam was sure that she had given birth to a girl child as she had had a scan before her delivery.

Hospital authorities explained that the nurse on duty had mistaken her daughter to be the new-born son of Dinh Thi Hoai from Son Ha district, as his clothes had been mistakenly switched.

Hoai, the mother of the baby boy, comes from an ethnic minority community. When told of the bungle up, she disagreed with hospital authorities and refused to part with the baby girl. Hospital authorities spent three hours trying to convince her to give back Cam’s daughter.

Do Tat Hung, director of the hospital, explained that nurse Kim Oanh had carried Cam’s girl baby out of the room because another woman in the room was shouting loudly, possibly frightening the little new-born.

The nurse took the new-born baby girl to Dinh Thi Hoai’s room and placed her there next to her son. Later the nurse mistakenly dressed the newborns in each others clothes.

The hospital then conducted a DNA test to verify the right mothers of the babies.

Hung said that the hospital will hold a meeting to penalize the nurse who caused such anguish with her carelessness.

SGGP