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Hospital St. Elisabeth and St. Barbara (archive): Mysterious manipulations
Photo: Steffen Schellhorn / imago images / Steffen Schellhorn
In a clinic in Halle an der Saale, blood samples from newborns have apparently been manipulated several times.
During a laboratory test in Magdeburg on October 5, it was found that three of the samples submitted from the clinic's obstetrics and pediatric medicine were not from infants, but from adults, said the St. Elisabeth and St. Barbara with.
The laboratory results showed very little fetal hemoglobin, i.e. the red blood pigment of an unborn or newborn. According to a letter from the board of directors to the employees, which SPIEGEL has received, a person employed in the clinic is responsible for the manipulation. However, it cannot be confirmed that the adult blood is the blood of this person, the hospital's spokesman told SPIEGEL.
According to the information, the newborn screening is used for the early detection of congenital metabolic defects, for example.
The aim is to enable the sick children to develop normally through therapy or diet at an early stage.
According to the clinic, the likelihood that a disease would go undetected in many children as a result of the manipulation is low, according to the clinic.
Statistically speaking, there would be one child for every 1,000 births with a positive result.
In the cases known so far, the follow-up examinations would not have revealed any evidence of illnesses in the babies.
"Blood samples deliberately adulterated by this individual"
Since October 1st, a new screening parameter that was atypical for blood from newborns has been included in a legally binding manner. Therefore, no irregularities were found in previous samples. In a follow-up examination with the new parameter, eight further samples, so-called reserve samples for quality assurance, were identified as adult blood.
A person employed in the clinic is said to have acted willfully. "According to the current status of our research, the conversation with a person working in the hospital and official investigations, we assume that the blood samples were deliberately falsified or manipulated by this individual," says the employee letter. The exact motive is not known. The person has not been on duty since the middle of the month. The State Criminal Police Office and the public prosecutor's office have reportedly started the investigation.
The person had been employed in the relevant area since 2013.
During this time, she was responsible for the blood samples of around 800 children, according to media reports, including those from MDR and "Mitteldeutscher Zeitung".
The clinic will notify possible affected families in the coming weeks and invite them to a follow-up examination.
bbr / dpa
