Jodhpur:
It took a DNA test to convince Poonam Kanwar and her husband, Chain Singh, that a baby girl delivered 11 days ago is truly theirs.
When the baby was born, midwives at the government-run Umaid Hospital in Jodhpur told Poonam she had delivered a boy. They wanted the sort of tip that news of a son usually meets. Arrivals of daughters are not seen as worthy of rewards for the hospital staff.
A baby boy had been born to another couple that same night. This child, the nurses told Poonam, was hers. When the boy's parents found out about this, a full-blown battle broke out between the two couples. For eight days, the baby girl, who nobody apparently wanted, was left to the attention of nurses. Poonam refused to see her or feed her till three days ago when she had a change of heart. Confronted with her hospital records that showed she had given birth to a daughter, she began feeding her. But both her husband and she said that a DNA test would have to prove to them that this was their child.
That report was presented first in the Rajasthan High Court today and later to Poonam Devi, who says this is all she needed to take her little girl home.
The Rajasthan Women's Commission and a committee of senior doctors to probe this case have also ordered the hospital to punish the staff that misreported the baby's details. Chargesheets have been served to four midwives who were on duty when the baby girl was born.