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The discovery that two women were switched at birth has rocked two families in the West Midlands. It began when Tony’s friends bought him a DNA home-testing kit for Christmas in 2021. Two months later, on a rainy day when Tony was bored because his golf game was cancelled, he took the test, and sent it off. Weeks later, he received the results pinpointing the place in Ireland where his maternal family came from, but it also revealed that his full sibling, his sister Jessica, was wrong. Instead, someone called Claire was listed as his full sibling.
Claire had been given the same test two years earlier and had received notification in 2022 that a full sibling had joined her family tree. When Claire and Tony exchanged biographical details, they discovered that Claire had been born about the same time and in the same hospital as Jessica. The two baby girls had been switched at birth, 55 years previously, and brought up in different families.
Cases where babies have been accidentally swapped on maternity wards are practically unheard of in the UK. The NHS replied that as far as its records showed, there were no documented incidents of babies being sent home with the wrong parents. However, in this instance, the hospital staff had given Joan her biological daughter, Claire, and gave her the fair-haired baby Jessica by mistake.
Some weeks after discovering the shocking news, Tony wrote to the NHS trust that oversees the hospital where the mistake occurred, and the trust has since admitted liability, although the level of compensation is yet to be agreed, two-and-a-half years on. Claire and Joan discovered they had a lot in common, such as their tastes in clothes and food, and how they take their tea. They’ve been on holiday, exploring their biological roots in Ireland, and they spent last Christmas together.
No amount of compensation can make up for the yearning Joan has felt for the daughter she thought she had lost forever. However, for Claire and Joan, the bond that they share is now unbreakable, and Joan says that nothing can change the fact that Jessica is her daughter. In another heart-wrenching twist, it is reported that Jessica does not call Joan ‘Mum’ anymore, but Joan feels only that she has gained a daughter, regardless of the biological connection
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