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Women switched as babies win 425,000 euros damages
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WARSAW (AFP) - A court in the Polish capital Warsaw on Thursday awarded 1.9 million zloty (425,000 euros, 566,000 dollars) to three young women switched at birth, two of whom are identical twins.
In December 1983, 15-day-old twin girls Kasia and Nina Ofmanska -- both suffering from pneumonia -- were placed in a Warsaw hospital.
It was there that one of the twins was switched by mistake with another baby girl also being cared for at the hospital.
Seventeen years later, the case of mistaken identity came to light by chance when it emerged that Edyta Wierzbicka, a girl identical to Kasia also living in Warsaw, was her real twin. Genetic testing later confirmed the hospital's error.
In 2002, both families took legal action against the Polish state seeking damages for all three girls, now aged 25. The parents of the young women, all of whom claim to have been traumatised by the switch, were also awarded part of the damages.
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WARSAW (AFP) - A court in the Polish capital Warsaw on Thursday awarded 1.9 million zloty (425,000 euros, 566,000 dollars) to three young women switched at birth, two of whom are identical twins.
In December 1983, 15-day-old twin girls Kasia and Nina Ofmanska -- both suffering from pneumonia -- were placed in a Warsaw hospital.
It was there that one of the twins was switched by mistake with another baby girl also being cared for at the hospital.
Seventeen years later, the case of mistaken identity came to light by chance when it emerged that Edyta Wierzbicka, a girl identical to Kasia also living in Warsaw, was her real twin. Genetic testing later confirmed the hospital's error.
In 2002, both families took legal action against the Polish state seeking damages for all three girls, now aged 25. The parents of the young women, all of whom claim to have been traumatised by the switch, were also awarded part of the damages.
