Two men, who were mistakenly exchanged at birth at the General de Guadalajara and Vall d’Hebron hospitals in Barcelona in 1971 and 1972, respectively, claim some three million euros from the respective health services for the damage caused. 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 three million euros is the maximum established by the Law of Consumers and Users for damages that can be considered irreparable, the lawyer explained this Tuesday 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, but only received 215,000 euros. Currently, there is a double claim open: one for the difference in amounts in the payment and another for the entirety up to three million, which was what 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.
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 “some 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.
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’Hebron 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.
Both parents and a biological sibling are deceased. Likewise, the “more than likely” male exchanged due to the identification error at birth has also died “ignoring whether or not he came to know of the exchange,” added the lawyer.
Sáez Morga has explained that his defendant from Logroño insists on claiming up to three 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.
