The CEO of an Australian fertility clinic has been forced to apologise after a patient unknowingly gave birth to someone else's baby.
Medics at Monash IVF in Brisbane, Queensland, accidentally implanted another woman's embryos into the patient in question - who birthed the child earlier this year - putting the mix-up down to 'human error'.
IVF - which stands for in vitro fertilisation - is a procedure founded in a bid to assist more people with fertility problems with having a baby.
According to the NHS, during treatment, an egg is removed from the woman's ovaries and fertilised with sperm in a lab. The fertilised egg - later called an embryo - is then returned to the woman's womb, where it should grow into a foetus and result in a successful pregnancy.
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Representatives from the firm in this case claimed that staff only became aware of the heartbreaking mistake in February, when the birth parents to the child requested that their remaining embryos be transferred to another clinic.
Last year, it was discovered that viable embryos from 700 other patients at Monash IVF had been accidentally destroyed, resulting in a $56 million AUD (£26.7m) payout.
An investigation subsequently found that 35 percent of said embryos medically normal and could have resulted in a viable pregnancy, but were destroyed after fault screening found them to be abnormal, as per the BBC.
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Following the birth parents' plea, staff at the clinic then realised they'd thawed and transferred an embryo belonging to another patient into the birth mother, resulting in a successful pregnancy and labour.
Another investigation was subsequently launched, with Monash IVF calling on their firm's crisis management team.
A week later, a conversation was had with the affected parents, during which support was supposedly offered.
According to local media reports, the clinic's CEO Michael Knaap has since responded to the backlash, saying on Thursday (10 April) that he and his team are 'devastated' by the mistake.
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In a statement, he said: "On behalf of Monash IVF, I want to say how truly sorry I am for what has happened."
Knaap also insisted that staff at the clinic were confident the mistake in question was an isolated incident.
"We are reinforcing all our safeguards across our clinics - we also commissioned an independent investigation and are committed to implementing its recommendations in full."
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The error made by the fertility firm has also been referred to relevant regulators - including the Reproductive Technology Accreditation Committee.
Staff also voluntarily reported their error to the new Queensland assisted reproductive technology regulator.
Tyla contacted Monash IVF for further comment.
Rhianna Benson