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Hospital sorry for baby swap

Couples seek damages as investigators search for person responsible

By Markéta Hulpachová
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
October 10th, 2007 issue

The director of Třebíč Hospital in south Moravia personally apologized Oct. 8 to two couples whose children were exchanged at birth due to a hospital error 10 months ago.
The apology follows a week of investigations launched by police and hospital director Petr Mayer, who are searching for the person responsible for the mix-up.
“After learning about this unfortunate matter, the Třebíč Hospital immediately launched a series of screenings and filed a criminal report against the unknown culprit,” Mayer says. “The hospital has screened all its [control mechanisms] in the natal and maternity departments to make sure nothing like this ever happens again.”
The mix-up was discovered after one of the couples — Libor Broža and Jaroslava Trojanová of Velké Meziříčí — underwent a DNA test because Nikola, one of the infant girls, was growing up to look nothing like them. The child is blonde while both of the parents have dark hair, according to the Czech News Agency.
When the DNA tests proved Nikola was not the biological offspring of either parent, they turned to the police. Days later, the police discovered Broža and Trojanová’s real daughter, Veronika, was being raised by another couple — Jan Čermák and Jaroslava Čermáková of Přibyslavice.
After their first meeting Oct. 4, the couples agreed to exchange the children back as soon as possible, Aktualne.cz reported.
The two families are planning to file a joint lawsuit against the hospital and seek 10 million Kč in damages, or 1 million Kč for every month they unknowingly raised someone else’s child, Brož told the daily Mladá fronta Dnes, but legal experts say the families are unlikely to receive the desired sum.
“Compensation in cases where the hospital is at fault is around 240,000 Kč,” says Czech Medical Chamber attorney Jan Mach. “I cannot imagine that the courts will approve a substantially higher compensation.”
The exchange may have adverse psychological effects on the infants, Lenka Šulová, a specialist in early childcare development, told Aktualne.cz.
“The first months are extremely important for a person’s development, especially for maternal bonding,” she says. “These children will be harmed twice — once because of the exchange at birth, then by the second exchange 10 months later.”

Markéta Hulpachová can be reached at mhulpachova@praguepost.com


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