A court has dismissed the damages claim from a North West mother who sued the local hospital and provincial health officials for R500 000 after undertakers mistakenly removed the wrong baby from the facility’s mortuary and the wrong family buried it, reports IOL.
The mother claimed she has been in a state of shock and suffering from headaches ever since.
The North West High Court (Mafikeng) was told that at the time – during the height of the Covid pandemic – only one mortuary attendant was employed at the Lehurutshe Hospital, and she was under immense pressure.
While she was dealing with another family and queues formed as other families tried to claim bodies, the wrong baby was taken by mistake.
The mother of baby A, only identified as M, sued for damages for the grief she had to endure by burying the wrong baby, who was later exhumed.
She was eventually handed her own baby to bury.
Baby A (the plaintiff’s baby) was stillborn, while Baby B was six-months-old, and died at the same hospital after being ill. Both babies were in the same fridge in the mortuary, but both had tags on their bodies to identify them.
As the mortuary attendant was busy, she told the undertakers to look in the fridge for the body instead of handing it over to them herself. They took the wrong body – a mistake which was only discovered after the burial.
The plaintiff told the court that the hospital staff had acted negligently by failing to verify that the remains given to her family were that of her baby. She also claimed she was never allowed to see her baby’s body when it was put into a coffin.
She said hospital staff phoned her a day after she had buried her baby to tell her it was the wrong body. The remains were subsequently urgently exhumed and replaced with the body of her own infant.
The mother said she has since suffered trauma, discomfort, emotional shock, as well as pain and suffering, and that this had affected her family considerably and resulted in her health deteriorating, resulting in “constant headaches”, she told the court.
The acting clinical manager for Lehurutshe Hospital acknowledged the bungling with the bodies but said a social worker had been arranged to counsel the aggrieved families.
He testified that they exhumed the body and re-buried the other body at state expense. He said they did not deny anyone an opportunity to see the baby, but conceded that in some cultures, families did not allow the mother to see their dead infants.
The mortuary attendant, meanwhile, said she only noticed the next day that the hearse had taken the wrong baby – this was after baby B’s family arrived to get their infant’s body. She said in her 18 years of working there, this was the first time a body had been swopped.
No proof of psychiatric injury
The hospital and the North West Health MEC denied the woman suffered compensable psychiatric injury, reports TimesLIVE.
Acting Judge JT Maodi said for the woman to succeed in this type of claim, she had to prove that negligence on the part of the hospital led to a breach of the duty of care, and as a result thereof, she had suffered a detectable psychiatric injury.
“Mere nervous shock or trauma is not sufficient,” he said.
Based on the version of witnesses for the Health Department, he said it was the duty of the mortuary attendant and ultimately that of the hospital to ensure that the correct baby was given to the correct family.
“However, is this sufficient for the plaintiff to succeed in her claim?”
Maodi said the woman claims to have recurring headaches, but no professionally diagnosed medical condition or evidence was tendered in respect of that.
“The plaintiff cannot simply allege shock. It must be substantiated by expert psychiatric evidence. I do not know if the plaintiff has or is suffering (from) PTSD, depression, medically diagnosed migraines or anxiety.”
Maodi said at the beginning of the case, counsel for the woman indicated they had a report by a medical expert. However, they elected not to use it or call the medical expert who authored it.
He said to find in favour of a claimant who, subjectively and without expert medical diagnosis, in cases of this nature, claimed headaches or psychiatric injury, would lead to chaos and open floodgates for undeserving matters.
The judge added that in the absence of any medical evidence on these aspects, the court has no choice but to turn down her claim.
IOL article – Tragic mistake: Mother sues hospital for burying the wrong child (Open access)
TimesLIVE article – Court dismisses R500k claim over hospital baby mix-up (Restricted access)
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
Hospital gives mother wrong baby to bury
Newborn baby to be exhumed for DNA testing over ‘mistaken identity’