Seoul, July 20: A South Korean court has ordered a hospital to pay a mother nearly $56 000 in damages after it mistakenly gave her the wrong baby 16 years ago.
The unidentified woman gave birth at the hospital in Guri, a satellite city west of Seoul, in 1992 but a nurse mistook another baby for her own daughter.
The mother began suspecting the child was not her own last July when her blood type turned out to be type A. She and her husband were both type B.
A genetic test proved the daughter was biologically unrelated.
Judge Lee Joon-Ho, in a ruling on Sunday, said the hospital failed to take adequate care of the newborn babies and return each one to the right parents.
“The hospital must pay compensation to its client for causing mental losses,” he said in his ruling quoted by Yonhap news agency.
The biological daughter has not yet been located, the reports said.
The court rejected the mother’s demand that the hospital release its records, citing the need to protect personal information.
—Agencies