Hospital Offers $500 In Gift Vouchers As A ‘Sorry We Switched Your Babies’ Gesture
A woman in Australia delivered a baby boy in January at a nice private hospital. Everything was going just fine, until a nurse came in and told her that there had been a mix-up and the little boy she was cuddling was someone else’s baby entirely.
According to the Herald Sun, Nick and Samantha Stuhlener welcomed baby Levi at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Melbourne in January. But after about 45 minutes in their hospital room with their new baby, a nurse came in and said there had been a mixup. Levi had been in the “settling room” and the Stuhleners had accidentally been given someone else’s baby. Both babies were reportedly wearing correct ID tags, but the nurse had failed to cross-check the baby IDs with the parent IDs when she was bringing the baby to them.
The Stuhleners were horrified, as anybody would be. But they say the stress of the incident made it so they are having trouble bonding with the real Levi, who is now three months old. They are also not satisfied with the hospital’s story about the incident. The hospital says the real Levi was just napping in the settling room the whole time, but Samantha Stuhlener told Mama Mia she worries Levi was with another woman and might have been breastfed by another mother.
The hospital says Levi was in the settling room and neither baby was fed or changed by a wrong parent. The hospital sent the Stuhleners an apology and $500 in gift vouchers, though according to Parentdish the Stuhleners received vouchers addressed to the parents of the other baby. The Stuhleners say the hospital is refusing to let them see the incident report so they can verify what actually happened.
I can’t even imagine how stressful the situation was for the parents, but luckily the babies were safely and promptly returned to their proper parents. It is ridiculous that the hospital is not letting them see the incident report, though. The hospital screwed up royally, and the parents should have the right to see the report, even if just to reassure themselves.
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