Hospital Off The Hook In Baby Switch Row

Lebogang Mosikare | Monday January 30, 2017 14:42

 

The child’s mother, Dineo Bentu, had taken NRH to court alleging that the child that NRH said was hers was not her child. She was of the view that the child was possibly swapped after she gave birth prematurely through caesarean operation.

Oratile Bentu, died in October last year and is currently at the mortuary of NRH awaiting burial.

Bentu made a successful urgent application before Justice Barnabas Nyamadzabo to force NRH to pay for the DNA tests in order to prove that the child was hers or not.

NRH does not perform DNA tests. It sought the services of DNA experts from the Botswana Police Service (BPS) to perform DNA tests on the corpse. The tests from the BPS laboratory showed that the dead child was indeed Bentu’s child.

After the results from the BPS scientists showed that the child was Bentu’s child, her family sought another medical opinion using their own funds from a private DNA expert based in Gaborone.

On Friday, Bentuís uncle Gift Keaitse confirmed that the second medical opinion from the private DNA expert that they engaged also showed that the child was indeed Bentu’s child.

He said they received the DNA tests results last week Wednesday and they would bury the child as soon as its mother returns from somewhere around the Dukwi area where she had gone to harvest Mophane worms.

Keaitse said they have not been able to communicate with the child’s mother because she is somewhere in the bush where they is no cell phone network.

“We are expecting Dineo to be back from harvesting Mophane worms on Sunday. We will then start preparations to bury the child. We have at last found closure but we will also evaluate if there was negligence on part of the hospital that may have led to the child’s death and then seek legal recourse,” Keaitse said.

NRHís public relations officer Keekae Majeremane confirmed that DNA tests had shown that the child at their mortuary is Bentu’s child.

She however said that she was constrained to comment more about the issue because it is not for public consumption. In the previous interview, Bentu said her ordeal started after she gave birth to a girl through caesarean operation.

She said later on, NRH changed its initial position telling her that her dead baby was a boy, something that made her suspicions that the dead child is not hers. She then decided to take the court route to force NRH to perform DNA tests on the child so that she be assured that the child that NRH wants her to bury was indeed hers.

Bentu said she could not remember what happened after she gave birth because she was sedated. She added that she was told that her child was transferred to Bokamoso Private Hospital (BPH) where it later died adding that she was later called by NRH to come and take a female corpse from the hospital.

NRH’s contention that the corpse at its mortuary was Bentu’s child was complicated by the fact that Nyamadzabo’s ruling clearly stated that some of the documents that he perused stated that the child was a male while others said it was a female.

NRH initially wanted Bentu to pay for the DNA test from her pockets hence she instructed her attorney, Martin Dingake to lodge a successful application before court which ordered NRH to bear the costs of the DNA tests.