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- BBC News World
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Image source, Getty Images
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The two were born on the same day, five hours apart, in a public hospital in Logroño, La Rioja, in northern Spain.
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Both with so little weight – just 2 kilos and 300 grams – that the doctors decided to transfer them immediately to the incubator room of the maternity area.
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It was there that the apparent neglect occurred: one baby was exchanged for another; two mothers received a daughter who was not their own.
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It was 2002 and for a long time nothing was known about that incident.
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Until DNA testing in 2017 allowed one of the girls – then 15 years old – to discover that did not live with his biological family.
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At 16 years of age, he initiated an investigation, pressuring the health authorities with the help of his lawyers to assess the circumstances of his birth.
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That investigation has culminated in a lawsuit for more than 3 million euros (US $ 3.5 million) for moral damages.
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“An absurdity”
The ministry only offers him a compensation of 215,000 euros (US $ 254,000), explained this Wednesday in a radio program his lawyer, José Saéz-Morga, who considers the response of the health authorities “a real nonsense”.
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“It is surprising that in the record we have been told that there is no causal relationship, that there is no unlawful damage and that my client has an obligation to bear it when it is outrageous,” said the lawyer.
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Image source, Vladimir Nenov / EyeEm/ Getty Images
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Health authorities say it was human error.
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The plaintiff, who is now 19 years old and prefers to remain anonymous, a worker at the Saéz-Morga law firm told BBC Mundo, grew up in a difficult family context.
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“It was immersed in a risk situation since 2003 due to the disabilities and incapacities of his formal parents, being left in charge of his supposed maternal grandmother, “the lawyer told the local newspaper La Rioja.
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The “grandmother” and legal guardian of the young woman filed a lawsuit in 2017 against the alleged father of the minor for refusing to contribute money for her food. The man denied that she was his daughter and it was then that a genetic test revealed that, indeed, she was not.
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Soon after, further tests and analysis revealed that her mother and grandmother were not her biological family either.
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From there, a health inspection with samples of girls who were born on the same day and at similar times revealed what had happened.
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“Human error”
The ministry assures that it was a human error.
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“It was a specific human error that cannot be repeated today”, Said this Tuesday the Minister of Health of the Government of La Rioja, Sara Alba, in statements sent to BBC Mundo by the regional Ministry of Health.
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The minister said that the case has been investigated, but “it is not possible to conclude who made the mistake, since the systems were not computerized in such detail 20 years ago.”
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Image source, Getty Images
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Sara Alba in April 2021.
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“We are available to families to give them all the necessary support they may need, maintaining the confidentiality and respect that these types of situations require,” added the minister, who assured that she will guarantee that the situation does not repeat itself in the future.
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“Identification systems have changed a lot in these years,” he said; now they are “safer and more reliable“.
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According to the Ministry, at the time the applicant was born the babies were identified through a fingerprint, “which was later modified by the plantar print (of the soles of the feet)” and “currently, the sample is used umbilical cord blood “.
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“With current procedures, it would be practically impossible for something like this to happen again “, added the minister. The center where the accident occurred – the San Millán hospital – no longer exists; It was demolished in 2009.
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