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19-year-old sues health trust for $3.5m after DNA test shows she was exchanged at birth

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A teen is suing for €3 million ($3.5 million) in compensation after finding she was exchanged at birth with another baby over 20 years ago.

In 2002, the now-19-year-old was relocated to a maternity ward at a hospital in Spain’s La Rioja region.

The blunder was uncovered by coincidence when one of the women did a DNA test and realized she was not genetically connected to her putative mother and father.

It occurred after she and another baby were born underweight and placed in incubators before being given to the wrong parents.

Spanish medics have blamed the incident on “human error”.

The 19-year-old is now taking legal action against local health authorities.

Sara Alba, health chief of Spain’s northern La Rioja region, told a news conference: “It was a human error and we haven’t been able to find out who was to blame.

“The systems back then were different and weren’t as computerised as they are now.”

Ms Alba offered assurances such an incident could not happen again.

She spoke out after a local newspaper, La Rioja, published a report about the switch on Tuesday.

The other woman who was given to the wrong parents has also been told about the mistake, according to the newspaper.

Neither of the two women have been identified.

Two young French women who were mistakenly switched at birth were awarded €400,000 (approx $4.7m) each after being sent home with the wrong parents in 1994.

Both questioned the identity of the infant they had been handed – despite the nurse insisting no mistake had been made.

The devastating truth emerged a decade later when one of the mothers took a DNA test.

A woman at the centre of an infamous baby switch case in the US in 1995 revealed how she was still furious with the hospital 18 years on.

Paula Johnson learned in 1998 how Callie, the baby girl she raised for three years, was not her daughter.

“I’m angry because I don’t have a relationship with my biological child,” she said in 2013.

Image Credit: iStock

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