A Florida mother is demanding answers after says her baby mistakenly given to a different woman for breastfeeding when nurses mistook her child for another.
“I was really scared,” said new mom Joii Brown. “It was shocking.”
Brown said the mix-up happened just hours after she gave birth to her son, Roman Phillips, at Orange Park Medical Center last week when nurses took the newborn to be circumcised, News4Jax reported. The procedure normally takes 30 minutes, so Brown said she instantly knew something was wrong when nurses didn’t return with her son until 90 minutes later.
Joii Brown said nurses told her another woman had breastfed her child for nearly two minutes before they realized the mistake. (News4Jax)
“These two nurses walked in and they said that they took my child into another girl’s room and they mistakenly thought that was her child and not mine,” Brown told the station. “And she ended up breastfeeding him for two minutes.”
She said the nurses chalked it up to a simple “human mistake,” saying they forgot to check her son’s wristband to see which mother he belonged to. Brown says the mix-up was totally avoidable and should never have happened.
“I know everybody makes mistakes, but this is something I feel like is more than just a mistake because, just looking at a wristband, that’s something really minor,” she said. “All you had to do was look at the wristband and see that isn’t her child.”
Hospital officials said they’ll “do everything we can to follow the family’s wishes and support the family” and agreed to run tests on Brown’s son. Still, the new mother says she’s afraid her child may get sick.
The hospital has refused to release any more information about the woman who mistakenly breastfed her baby, citing Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA) laws, according to the station. Moreover, Brown said doctors told her they won’t be able to know if her son caught any type of illness until he’s a little older and they can run more tests.
Brown said she and her husband are now considering legal action and are speaking with an attorney.
Watch more in the clip below.
