Race against time to find lost son in baby mix-up
Family’s bid to reunite mother, 93, with boy born in 1951
A MIDLAND family have launched a desperate search to find the lost son of a 93-year-old woman.
They claim that a mix-up at the George Eliot Hospital in Nuneaton led to Joan and Tom Randle being given the wrong baby.
That was 71 years ago – and now they want to trace the son and brother they have never been given the chance to meet.
Sue Polley said that her mother gave birth to a baby boy, weighing 6.5lbs, in the hospital on April 16, 1951 – but claims she was given the wrong baby.
Her husband Tom passed away several years ago, but Joan, who is 93, lives in hope that she will be reunited with her biological son.
“We need to do it before it’s too late. Mum is 93 and her son, our brother, would be 71 now,” daughter Mrs Polley explained.
“Our brother is out there and we should still be able to have a relationship with him, and my mum, too,” she said.
It was a conversation Mrs Polley had with her late father that aroused suspicions.
Then her mother confirmed to her there could have been a mix-up.
“Mum gave birth at about 2am in the morning and the policy at the hospital was to say, ‘oh, it’s a boy’, weigh them, wrap them up in a shawl and out into the nursery and you didn’t see them until feed time the next day,” Mrs Polley said.
“They kept them in the nursery, you didn’t have the baby with you at all, they just came in for feeding.
“The babies were not labelled, the mothers were not labelled and no names were put above the beds of the mothers.
“My mother remembers a midwife coming into the ward in the morning carrying four unlabelled babies in her arms.
“As the midwife got near my mum’s bed, she started to lose her grip and dropped a baby on my mum’s legs. That was the baby she ended up bringing home.”
She alleges that a sister on the ward may have been made aware of a mixup.
“Before my father passed, he told me he believed the sister nurse was going to tell him there had been a mix-up and believed they had brought the wrong baby home,” she said.
After her father passed away, Mrs Polley began researching the family ancestry and bought a DNA test with Ancestry.
The man she thought to be their brother had also done a DNA test – and there was no match.
So she began her search to find their biological brother and what would be her mother’s first-born son.
“I have spent hours and hours, I have all of the boys’ names who were born in April in Nuneaton that year and unless they have died, you can’t see what day it was without ordering all birth certificates and that is difficult if you don’t know the full names of the parents,” she said.
She has also contacted the hospital directly – to no avail.
“I have been in touch with the Register Office, but they won’t give any names without a court order. I have got in touch with the ombudsman but they said because it is pre1966, you can’t sue the NHS, so they won’t help.
“I said we aren’t trying to sue, we are trying to find the real baby. I am just going round and round in circles
“I got despondent because the George Eliot Hospital won’t give me the information. It would have been so easy if they did.”
Mrs Polley has now turned to the Nuneaton and Bedworth community for help and put an appeal on the Nuneaton and Bedworth history site on Facebook.
“I got more reaction than I ever thought possible,” she said. “I also copied across to the Bedworth Community Forum and that got the same response. I had people private message me trying to help and look things up for me.
“I have spent hours and hours and hours but still got nowhere.”
She says she has 190 names of baby boys born in April, 1951, in Nuneaton:
“Our full sibling is one of them,” she said.
She has urged those born either on April 15 or April 16, 1951, at the George Eliot Hospital to take a DNA test – or for their family to.
“We are just living in hope that he or one of his children take a DNA test with Ancestry so we can find him before time runs out,” she said.
The Post contacted the George Eliot Hospital about the allegations. In a statement, David Eltringham, managing director at the hospital, said: “NHS Organisations are legally required to destroy Birth Registers after 25 years.
“The trust has complied with this requirement and there are no records at George Eliot Hospital NHS Trust to be able to assist Mrs Randle.”
The babies were not labelled, the mothers were not labelled and no names were put above the beds of the mothers. Sue Polley