A Limpopo woman has accused the Mankweng Hospital of swapping her baby. DNA tests are now being conducted.
The mother gave birth earlier this May. The premature baby weighed 172 grams and the mother was not allowed to see the baby for the first three days.
On the fourth day she was allowed to feed the baby. It was on the fifth day that this story took a strange twist.
She was told to leave the ward but managed to look through a glass door at what was happening inside.
“Through the glass door I saw the nurse changing the name tag. After five minutes I was called back. She told me that this baby was no longer mine. I started screaming and phoned my relatives who came and spoke to the nurses,” the mother argues.
The Department says the woman is mistaken.
“Immediately after receiving the complaint, we launched our own investigation. We used the doctor’s report, hospital files and other evidence. We are convinced that the baby who the woman is denying is hers, is indeed hers,” says Limpopo Department of Health’s Neil Shikwambana.
He says the department has arranged for independent DNA testing and the results will be available in five weeks.
The question is: why would the nurses swap a baby? To what end and to whose benefit?
The woman’s family says they have little faith in the process and suggested that the results might even be tampered with.
