A Belgian hospital has been fined almost £60,000 after giving a Spanish couple too many healthy children from an IVF treatment to create a ‘saviour baby’.
The parents had gone to University Hospital in Brussels in need of a bone marrow donor for their first child, who suffers from a rare blood disorder.
They decided that neither of them were compatible and chose to have the mother conceive with a prescreened embryo which would be compatible for a donor child.
But in a shocking mix-up in fertility treatment, the mother was impregnated twice by mistake, and though healthy neither of the babies turned out to be a suitable donor.
University Hospital in Brussels has been fined almost £60,000 after giving a Spanish couple too many healthy children from an IVF treatment to create a ‘saviour baby’ for their sick child (stock photo)
Desperate to provide a doughnut for their child however, the couple went back to Spain where they had a fourth baby who was found to be suitable.
In what is believed to be the first case of its kind, UZ Brussels has now been fined €68,000 (£57,000) for the mistake after it left the couple ‘shocked’ and risked their ‘impoverishment’ because of the need to have a fourth child.
This extraordinary case was revealed recently in a Belgian medical journal.
According to the report, the couple went to UZ Brussels for fertility treatment for their son with beta thalassemia.
The procedure requires a bone transplant. However, it was not possible to locate a donor. However, technically you can ‘create a donor child’ through IVF.
Belgium is one of only a few places in Europe that permits the creation of a ‘saviour baby’ through IVF treatment – as long as the child is also desired, and not conceived purely for medical reasons.
But ruling that the couple ‘wanted two or three children within their family project, but never four’, a Belgian judge ruled the hospital’s accidental double impregnation would require €25,000 (£21,000) compensation for ‘the impoverishment caused by the presence of a fourth child’.
In what is believed to be the first case of its kind, UZ Brussels (pictured) paid €68,000 (£57,000) to the couple for the mistake after it left them ‘shocked’ and risked their ‘impoverishment’ because of the need to have a fourth child
The judge added €27,000 (£22,500) in ‘moral compensation’ for the mother, €11,000 (£9,200) for the father and €5,000 (£4,200) for the oldest son as his operation was delayed by the error.
Hospital officials have since confirmed the story.
UZ Brussels spokeswoman, she stated: “It’s true that this lady received an embryo that did not contain all the necessary genetic characteristics.
“But, the embryo was healthy so it had the greatest chance of becoming pregnant.”
“The parents were paid and the UZ Brussels Centre for Reproductive Medicine procedures were increased to minimize the possibility of such an incident happening again.