Shinyanga Hospital in ‘switch at birth’ baby controversy

SULEIMAN SHAGATA in Shinyanga

CONTROVERSY has engulfed Shinyanga Regional Referral Hospital after a mother who gave birth in the facility last Tuesday claimed to have been given a baby that is not hers.

Ms Jeska Charles, a resident of Ndala Street in Shinyanga Municipality, was admitted to the hospital’s maternity wing on September 5 where she delivered a baby the following day.Her husband, Mr Charles Mathias, told the ‘Daily News’ that shortly after his wife gave birth, nurses told her that the baby was a boy.

She was then discharged on condition of not taking off the clothes covering a baby, which made them unable to confirm whether it was really a baby boy. While on their way, they decided to uncover their infant only to find that it was a baby girl while on the birth declaration it was written that it was a boy. “We were shocked. The baby was not ours,” he said.

The hospital’s Acting Medical Officer, Dr Herbert Masigati, admitted that the incident occurred due to human error as the nurse on duty did a mistake when filling in the birth registration form. When filling the form, the nurse described a baby as boy instead of a girl, Dr Masigati said.

He explained that the forms normally have such information such as weight of a baby and details of a mother. Following the complaints, the hospital’s management verified the information on the form and the baby, whereby they found that apart from the gender, all information filled in the form were correct.

The Acting Medical Officer in-Charge said they have told their staff on duty to write a report about what happened and hand it over to the disciplinary committee for further action.

“I ask the parents to forgive our staff for filling in wrong information in the form. I also assure them that we are ready to conduct a DNA test for more proof if they are ready,” Dr Masigati said