Everything was discovered in a meeting between friends. There was a couple from Cádiz, parents of a child born in 2021 by assisted fertilization, when one of the couple's assistants questioned the paternity of that creature. "It's just that she doesn't look like his father at all!" exclaimed that person.
The thing could have been left there, but days after that meeting another acquaintance of the couple pointed out a quick and simple formula to clear up doubts. Compare the child's blood group with those of the child's mother and father. The result? The child's blood group is "completely incompatible" with that of the parents.
Then – a couple of weeks ago – the results of a DNA test came back. That creature is the daughter of the mother (her egg was used in in vitro fertilization) but not of what until now she believed was her father. In this treatment, a sperm from another man, currently unknown, was used.
This is how this unusual story began to be written, according to Ignacio Martínez, a lawyer who represents those parents, and who uncovers in this start of the narrative "serious medical negligence." But many chapters remain to be written. And seek answers to countless questions.
How could such a serious mistake be made? Whose sperm (the father of that child) was used in this fertilization? Did the semen delivered by the mother's partner end up in another woman's ovum? Is it a punctual negligence or a repeated protocol problem in more cases?
Ignacio Martínez, lawyer for the Patient Advocate Association, pointed out yesterday to this newspaper that now "we want to clarify how an irreparable and already proven damage has been produced, such as the use in that fertilization of another man's sperm, when the couple from the mother had donated his semen. If history has more fronts "it will be seen in the future," adds this lawyer.
The first dilemma of this family has come when putting a price on the compensation claimed for that error. There are very few precedents and to set this request for one million euros to the Junta de Andalucía –in a lawsuit by administrative means– they have been taken into account, reveals the couple's lawyer, similar cases (although not the same) for exchanges of babies in Logroño and Pamplona.
In these matters, the administrations were willing to pay compensation of up to 800,000 euros.
“Setting an amount for such a serious error is not easy –says Ignacio Martínez– because here the damage caused transfers to the pain caused to the couple, because that child still wants to know, if they tell him what happened when he is an adult, who his father is ”.
And another question, now unresolved, that creates anxiety in that couple: Where did the semen sample delivered by the man who wanted to be a father end up?
Martínez strives to make clear the reason for making this case public, just knowing it: "we wanted an investigation to be opened in case this matter is not an isolated event." The strategy has worked.
The Junta de Andalucía Health Department reports that the case is being investigated “to get to the bottom of the matter” and determine the origin of the error –human or protocol– in order to take action.
An announcement that yesterday coincided with a news item from Canal Sur Cádiz that talks about another error in the same hospital (Puerta del Mar) also in an assisted fertilization process. This time the baby was not born.
