Newborns accidentally switched for about 3 hours at birth

January 27, 2012 1:17 PM

Scott Lawrence

PLANO, Texas (AP) - A Texas hospital has re-educated staff on patient identification procedures after two newborns were accidentally switched for about three hours after getting circumcised.

Kevin and Susan Dunagan say they noticed when their son was returned that he looked different, but they didn't realize what had happened until a worker at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital of Plano discovered the mix-up.

The Dallas Morning News reports (http://dallasne.ws/ArVzgD ) that the infants had been circumcised about the same time last month and their code numbers were similar.

The Dunagans' son was quickly located with the other baby's family.

The hospital noted in a statement Friday that while "human error" caused the safety checks not to work as planned, "redundancies built into our processes caught the error."

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Information from: The Dallas Morning News, http://www.dallasnews.com