FALSE: Zambian Nurse did not switch 5,000 babies at birth
The General Nursing Council of Zambia has refuted this claim
An article published by Classic 105 claiming that Elizabeth Bwalya Mwewa, a former nurse at the Zambia University Teaching Hospital confessed to switching 5,000 newborns while working at the hospital between 1983 and 1995 is FALSE.
The article, which originally appeared on The Zambian Observer, claimed that Mwewa is battling terminal cancer and made the confession from a hospital bed.
A reverse image search also shows that the photo used in the article was first posted on Ma Sedaye, a website by a Zimbabwean nurse living in Columbus, Ohio.
In a press statement sent to Agence France-Presse (AFP), the General Nursing Council of Zambia (GNCZ) denied the claim, adding that the nurse in question did not exist on the GNCZ register nor work in the University Teaching Hospital maternity ward.
PesaCheck has looked into the claim that a nurse swapped more than 5,000 newborns over 12 years at the University Teaching Hospital in Zambia and finds it to be FALSE.
This post is part of an ongoing series of PesaCheck fact-checks examining content marked as potential misinformation on Facebook and other social media platforms.
By partnering with Facebook and similar social media platforms, third-party fact-checking organisations like PesaCheck are helping to sort fact from fiction. We do this by giving the public deeper insight and context to posts they see in their social media feeds.
Have you spotted what you think is fake news or false information on Facebook? Here’s how you can report. And, here’s more information on PesaCheck’s methodology for fact-checking questionable content.
This fact-check was written by PesaCheck researcher Diana Kendi was edited by PesaCheck Content Editor Ann Ngengere and was approved for publication by PesaCheck Managing Editor Eric Mugendi.
PesaCheck is East Africa’s first public finance fact-checking initiative. It was co-founded by Catherine Gicheru and Justin Arenstein, and is being incubated by the continent’s largest civic technology and data journalism accelerator: Code for Africa. It seeks to help the public separate fact from fiction in public pronouncements about the numbers that shape our world, with a special emphasis on pronouncements about public finances that shape government’s delivery of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) public services, such as healthcare, rural development and access to water / sanitation. PesaCheck also tests the accuracy of media reportage. To find out more about the project, visitpesacheck.org.
PesaCheck is a joint initiative of Code for Africa, through its innovateAFRICA fund, with additional funding support from the International Budget Partnership (Kenya) and Twaweza, in partnership with a coalition of local media organisations, and the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ).
