Logroño (EFE).- Two men who were exchanged by mistake at birth in the General de Guadalajara and Val d’Hebrón hospitals in Barcelona in 1971 and 1972 claim some three million euros for the damages caused to the respective health services.
This was announced this Tuesday by the lawyer José Sáez Morga, who also handles the case of one of the girls exchanged in 2002 at the San Millán de Logroño Hospital, which was known in 2021.
The claim of 3 million euros is the maximum established by the Law of Consumers and Users for damages that can be considered irreparable, explained the lawyer at a press conference.
In the case of La Rioja, last April, the Court ordered the insurance company of the Rioja Health Service to pay compensation of 850,000 euros to the young woman who had been exchanged, of which she has only received 215,000 euros, for which keeps a double claim open, one for the difference between the two amounts and another for the entirety up to 3 million that he initially requested, the lawyer explained.
In the other two cases, the claim of the man from Guadalajara amounts to 2.9 million euros and that of Barcelona, to 3 million.
Discordances in the blood group
In Guadalajara, the interested party, due to apparent blood group discrepancies with his relatives, underwent voluntary DNA tests in 2021 with his mother and sister, formal or registered, from which his biological non-relationship resulted, Sáez Morga has pointed out.
When collecting his medical history, the Guadalajara health services replied that he did not appear and that, on the occasion of the transfer of the services to the new hospital, inaugurated on January 25, 1982, first General and then University, the documentation had been lost.
The Castilla-La Mancha Health Service indicated that no clinical documentation related to the birth of this man or his mother had been found; and pointed out that it was a problem detected with “a certain frequency” because in the transfer of medical records from the Old Residence to the University Hospital “the documentation was lost.”
A subsequent investigation carried out at the request of the investigating medical inspector, which became known on March 16, indicated that there is no clinical documentation regarding the birth or delivery.
This man, whose father of record has died, until now does not know his biological parents and relatives of that order, the lawyer has reported.
Two births five minutes apart
The case of Barcelona corresponds to a man registered as born at 11:15 a.m. on a certain day in 1972 at the Vall d’Hebrón Hospital, who, at the end of 2022, began a process of submitting to DNA tests, with results of incompatible kinship.
In the record book of births of this hospital, that day there is one at 11:15 and another at 11:10.
Sáez Morga has indicated that, from the information provided by the discovered biological relatives, it can be deduced that a formal brother of the same was born that same day in 1972 in the same hospital, which was reflected in the registration of the Civil Registry at 11: 10 hours and the reference of the same medical team as the interested party.
Those who have turned out to be biological parents of this man have passed away; just as they have died, between last March and April, a biological brother, whom he did not know personally; and the “more than likely” male exchanged due to the misidentification at birth, “ignoring whether or not he came to know of the exchange,” added the lawyer.
The young woman from Logroño insists on claiming 3 million euros
Sáez Morga has explained that his defendant from Logroño insists on claiming up to 3 million euros for damages, of which he has already received 215,000 of the 850,000 agreed by the Government of La Rioja, but the insurer requested a precautionary measure to suspend payment of the remaining 635,000, which was denied and which he has appealed.
This young woman, whose parents were declared incapable, grew up with what she believed to be her maternal grandmother, who, in 2017, filed a maintenance claim against the person she considered the girl’s parent, but he refused the payment and a DNA test confirmed that he was not the biological father.
It was also determined that she was not the daughter of who she considered her biological mother either, so she began the process to find out her real parents, the births registered at the old San Millán Hospital on the same day as hers were reviewed and it was discovered that the exchange of the two babies occurred in cribs.