18-year nightmare as families discover daughters were switched at birth

BULAWAYO – Two families are reeling after discovering that their daughters, now 18, were swapped at birth at Mpilo Central Hospital on May 13, 2007, ZimLive can reveal.

The heartbreaking mix-up came to light after the father of one of the girls, whose family lives in Bulawayo, grew suspicious that his youngest child looked nothing like her siblings.

Acting on his doubts, he secretly commissioned a DNA test, which revealed the girl was not biologically his.

A family source said: “He naturally accused his wife of cheating and they became estranged. The wife was devastated because she knew she had been faithful.”

Determined to uncover the truth, the woman returned to Mpilo Hospital to investigate. Records showed that only two girls were born that day, and she managed to obtain the name of the other mother, though no contact details were available.

“She began searching and in 2023 found the other woman on social media,” the source continued. “They met, shared their stories and agreed to do a DNA test. It confirmed beyond doubt that their babies had been swapped.”

The discovery upended both families’ lives. Mpilo Hospital allegedly admitted negligence, saying baby identification tags had likely slipped off and been replaced incorrectly.

“The hospital pleaded that in 2007 the country was going through a severe economic crisis, they were short-staffed and systems were compromised,” the source said.

Mpilo Hospital chief medical officer Dr Narcisius Dzvanga said he needed more time to respond to questions sent by ZimLive. We asked the hospital to explain how the mix-up occurred, whether similar risks remain, and what assistance — psychological or otherwise — has been provided to the affected families.

Sources close to the families said the hospital has done little more than advise them to find common ground.

“The least they could have done was deploy psychologists — they have no shortage of them under the ministry of health — to help them through the trauma,” said the source. “Instead, the families have been left to deal with the fallout alone.”

The ordeal was compounded by the death of the father of the Shurugwi-based girl, who passed away before learning the truth.

“The Bulawayo family is well-off and has offered to take care of both girls, but the Shurugwi relatives are still deciding. It’s not made better by the fact that the Shurugwi mum lives in South Africa, trying this and that to make ends meet. It’s difficult for everyone, understandably,” the source added.

Efforts have been made for the girls to spend time with both families to help them adjust and bond, though differences in language and culture — one family is Shona-speaking, the other Ndebele — have complicated the process.

The two families have reportedly engaged lawyers over potential lawsuits against the hospital.

The Mpilo Hospital case comes just months after a similar baby swap at the United Bulawayo Hospitals (UBH) in January.

In that incident, a Cowdray Park mother who had delivered a boy by Caesarean section was handed a girl after the babies were taken for cleaning. She maintained that her child was in fact a boy, but the nurses refused to entertain her protests.

Her suspicions led her to pay for a private DNA test, which confirmed her fears.

UBH later referred the case to the Applied Genetics Testing Centre at the National University of Science and Technology (NUST), which confirmed the babies had indeed been switched.

The Esigodini couple who had received the boy reportedly refused DNA testing until police intervened. The father, a small-scale miner, had been desperate for a son.

The Mpilo Hospital baby swap bears a striking resemblance to a precedent-setting case in South Africa. In 2014, the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria ruled on an almost identical situation from Tambo Memorial Hospital, where two children were accidentally swapped in 2010.

The truth in that case emerged when a paternity test revealed a man was not the father of the boy he was raising. The court was faced with an agonising decision: return the children to their biological families or preserve the bonds they had formed over years.

The court ultimately ruled that the children should remain with the families who had raised them, prioritising the psychological bonds of attachment over biological ties. The biological parents were granted contact rights, but not custody — a judgement that underscored the profound and irreversible emotional trauma inflicted by such a mix-up.

Today’s revelations could not have come at a worse time for Mpilo Central Hospital, the biggest referral health centre in Zimbabwe’s south-western region, which serves Matabeleland South, Matabeleland North, Bulawayo, Midlands and Masvingo.

The hospital has recently been engulfed in scandal over the recruitment of nursing students with falsified O’ Level certificates — not long after a man claiming to be a doctor was found attending to patients.
_*ZimLive*_