Doctors grilled after baby-swap claim

KOLKATA: A couple on Thursday alleged that the nursing home, where the woman had given birth on Wednesday, had handed them a newborn with deformities, though none of the USG reports of the foetus showed any anomaly.

Purba

Jadavpur

cops have sealed the Kalikapur nursing home’s lab and detained the radiologist, gynaecologist and the nursing home owner for questioning. The gynaecologist was let go after her statement was recorded. The police are probing whether the earlier reports from the lab were incorrect or the baby was swapped.

The father,

Sukanta Biswas

, said in his complaint that his wife, Tapasi, was admitted to Green Park Nursing Home, Kalikapur, around 5.30pm on Wednesday for delivery. Tapasi had been consulting a gynaecologist there. Sukanta and his sister, Munmun Das, reportedly waited outside as a C-section was started on Tapasi around 6.30 pm. “Sukanta and Munmun were made to wait outside the nursing home till 9pm, with no information about the surgery,” said the complainant’s brother, Tapas Biswas.

Running out of patience, Sukanta and Munmum walked into the nursing home, when they were allegedly handed a newborn, who had only one hand, eight toes and a deformed face. The gynaecologist told Sukanta to rush the infant to NRS hospital for plastic surgery. The infant is at NRS’s sick newborn care unit. Sukanta told cops he noticed a man, coming down from the first-floor OT, carrying a big bag. He suspects his newborn was smuggled out by the man.

“The allegation of babyswap is false, and it can be verified with a

DNA

test,” said Sanjib Saha, nursing home owner. “But the USG tests we had conducted had not shown the abnormalities in the foetus, which may happen at times.”