“I'm already going through the pain of losing my baby.
But in addition, the hospital tells me that the child I buried in the cemetery is not mine!
»A flood of sobs strangles Claire's voice
(the name has been changed)
.
This 33-year-old mother, originally from Vitry-sur-Seine, is living "a nightmare".
The offending?
The Kremlin-Bicêtre hospital (Val-de-Marne), and more precisely the staff of its mortuary.
This Tuesday, Claire received a call from management telling her that it was not her little girl that she buried on February 19.
The funeral chamber was therefore mistaken and gave him the body of another deceased child.
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Her ordeal began at the end of January when she went to the Kremlin-Bicêtre hospital.
Claire, a caregiver, was then 6 months pregnant.
This is her fifth child.
“They tell me that my little girl is dead, probably a few days ago.
But since it's the weekend, it's complicated on a personal level to give birth.
They send me home, with the body of my dead baby in the womb, she says.
I go back there on Sunday evening because I couldn't hold out.
They triggered my delivery.
"
"Stop making a joke on me", indignant the mother
On February 2, she gave birth to Shayana, "a stillborn child" as the doctors say.
His body joined the establishment's death chamber.
Her mom and her family say goodbye to her a few days later.
Already, at that point, the staff made a mistake: “I had told them several times that I did not want to see the body if it should be damaged.
Now, when I entered, the coffin was open.
I screamed, screamed… ”
On February 19, little Shayana was buried in the cemetery of Vitry-sur-Seine.
Claire cries there, surrounded by her family, thinking to meditate on her baby's grave.
The phone call from the hospital on February 23 will plunge her into an abyss of pain.
"Stop making a joke on me," replies the young mother.
The director explains to him what happened and apologizes.
No double verification of the identity bracelet
“The AP-HP
(Editor's note: Assistance publique-Hôpitaux de Paris)
recognizes the inversion of the bodies of two children, including a stillborn, in the death chamber of the Bicêtre hospital, explains the institution.
This exceptional event is due to human error on the day of the funeral of the first child.
The identity-vigilance procedures in fact provide for a double check of the body's identity bracelet, which has not been carried out.
"
The agent of the mortuary room realized the terrible error "when preparing the body for the funeral of the second child a few days later", adds the AP-HP.
Who renews “his most sincere apologies to the bereaved families”.
The hospital management met the two families concerned and offered to “accompany them in their efforts to organize the new funeral and exhumation in order to return the body wrongly buried to its family.
The two families were informed that the hospital would cover all the costs ”.
Long steps to reorganize a funeral
But things are not that simple now.
The parents of little Shayana, who is therefore currently in the hospital morgue, must obtain authorizations from the town hall, the police and the other family to unearth the body of the other child in the cemetery of Vitry.
A procedure that can take a long time.
If Claire testifies today in our columns, "it is so that this tragedy never happens again, so that no parent relives such pain".
The mother is angry and has a terrible grudge against the officers in the funeral home.
“I have nothing to do with the apologies of the hospital director.
If these people in the morgue are fed up with seeing bodies, let them change jobs!
I am a nursing assistant, so I know this environment a little.
We are very careful, there are procedures, checks… ”
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The establishment announces that it will "take the necessary measures in the mortuary chamber to prevent an incident of such seriousness from recurring".
He specifies that "this serious adverse event is the subject of a declaration to the health authorities".
