Mum Sues Hospital After Mix-up Saw Her Baby Being Breastfed By Another Mum

A mother is filing a lawsuit against a hospital in the US for negligence after her newborn son was breastfed by another woman in a terrible mix-up.

Mum Tammy Van Dyke gave birth to her son, Cody, in 2012, at Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minnesota in the US.

Two days after giving birth, the staff accidentally placed Cody with another mum, who had given birth to twins, then breastfeed Cody, thinking he was her baby, Liam.

Because of the mix-up, Cody had to go through blood tests for HIV and hepatitis for a year, all of which, thankfully turned negative results.

However, Ms Van Dyke has described Cody’s tests, which happened every three months, as “horrible”, despite receiving a letter of apology from Abbott Northwestern hospital, which acknowledged her son was placed in the wrong bassinet.

After the 2012 incident, Ms Van Dyke told KSTP-TV her shock at the error. “In good faith you drop your child off at the hospital nursery with the nurses. Never in a million years would you think this could happen or would happen,” she said.

Meanwhile, she said that the other mother who breastfed Cody was also highly distressed. “It gave me peace of mind to talk to her. She was just as distraught as me that this happened to her, and in the meantime, also didn’t know where her baby was,” Ms Van Dyke said.

In 2012, Allina Health System, operator of the hospital, has released a statement stating that standard procedures, which require staff to match codes on the baby and mother’s identification bands, were not followed in this particular case.

However, on Monday, Michelle Smith, clinical program director at Allina Health said that a new electronic procedure has since been implemented. “When the Mother Baby Center opened in February 2013, we began using electronic identification bands for the mother and infant that must be matched when returning the infant to the mother. This helps us to assure the identity of the infant and mother are matched each time,” she said.

Ms Van Dyke is determined to sue the hospital claiming they “negligently failed to care” for her son, saying that as a result, both parties have had to endure “unnecessary medical treatment and tests”.

She is now seeking $50,000 in damages.

Meanwhile, a statement issued by NSW Minister for Health in January 2016 confirmed that while the occurrence is rare, there had been a total of seven similar mix-ups over the past four years in NSW hospitals.

Source: Essentialbaby.com.au