Odisha hospital to act against 3 docs in baby swap case

Odisha Sun Times Bureau
Brahmapur, Apr 20:

Authorities at the MKCG Medical College and Hospital (MKCGMCH), the premier government hospital in southern Odisha, today announced that action will be taken against three doctors and a nurse of the hospital on charges of dereliction of duty after the DNA report of a new-born female child confirmed it to be a clear case of baby swap.

The DNA report confirmed that Anil Biswasray and his wife Priyadarshini of Hinjilikatu, who had been handed a dead boy child by the hospital staff, were the natural parents of the new-born female child, the superintendent of MKCGMCH informed here today.

Priyadarshini had delivered a girl child on February 21. But she was handed over a dead child by hospital staff on February saying the child had died at the Sick Newborn Care Unit (SNCU) where it had been admitted. Anil had protested when given the dead child by the hospital staff saying his wife had delivered a girl child, but to no avail.

The Biswasray couple then returned to their village and buried the dead child they had  been given by the hospital. They were so grief-stricken that they did not even bother checking the sex of the child before burying it by the side of a river.

The distraught couple, however, saw a ray of hope when Sunita Basantia and her husband Sibram Basantia of Sunathara village under Purushottampur tehsil complained that they had been given a girl child by hospital staff though Sunita had given birth to a boy.

Sunita had delivered a baby boy on February 20, but the newly born was admitted to the SNCU of the hospital following some complications. When the new-born was handed over to Sunita on March 6, she and her hsuband were stunned to find that it was a girl.

The Biswasrays now had very little doubt that the baby girl given to the Basantias was theirs and they placed their claim before the hospital authorities.

By then, the police was already investigating the matter on the basis of the compliant lodged by the Basantia couple at the Baidyanathpur police station here.

After the Biswasray couple staked claim to the baby girl, Baidyanathpur police exhumed the body from the grave in the presence of additional tehsildar, Hinjilikatu Bipin Kumar Pradhan and Sub Inspector of Baidyanathpur police station SN Pati. It was found after the exhumation that it was the body of a new-born baby boy though the tag on the boy’s hand had marked its gender as ‘female’ and its mother as Priyadarshini.

Autopsy was conducted on the new-born baby boy’s body at the MKCGMCH while bone tissue, hair and tissues from the dead child’s body were collected for the DNA test by Dr Kirankant Patnaik, assistant professor of the FMT department at the MKCG Hospital.