A hospital in Binh Phuoc province is under fire after a local couple recently discovered their three-year-old child had been switched at birth.

According to Thanh Nien, Vu Dinh Khien believed for years that his wife, Nguyen Thi Thu Trang, had cheated on him because their daughter didn’t have any of his features.

That is, until the day Trang’s father passed by a child in a nearby neighborhood who resembled his daughter. He immediately informed the couple, leading to the discovery that Khien and Trang had spent the past three years raising someone else’s child.

As it turns out, staff at the Binh Long General Hospital mixed up Trang’s daughter, born on January 10, 2013, with her roommate’s, sending the two children home with the wrong parents.

“It is really painful when the child we've been raising the past three years is not ours,” Khien told the news outlet. “It is even more painful to learn that our own child is undernourished.”

After a DNA test confirmed the switch, Dr. Tran Dinh Cuong, vice director of Binh Long, attempted to resolve the issue with the two couples, however Cuong told reporters that a meeting last month between him and couples was “not fruitful”.

“Our mistake and the consequences were too serious. The hospital is trying to arrange for the two children to return to their families,” he told Thanh Nien.

Cuong continued: “The hospital is also negotiating to compensate the families.”

So far, Binh Long has offered the couples VND12 million each as well as a free checkup for each child in a Saigon medical facility. Khien and Trang have refused this offer and are pushing for medical staff at the hospital to be penalized.

“We love the baby we are raising,” Khien told Thanh Nien. “But we hope to get our child back.”

Currently, the two children have not yet been returned to their biological parents.

[Photo via Bao Moi]