60-Year-Old Truck Driver Sues San-Ikukai Hospital After Learning He Was Switched at Birth from Wealthy Family
When a humble lorry driver from Tokyo discovered that he had been switched at birth with a child from a wealthy family, his entire understanding of his life crumbled overnight. For sixty years, he had labored under the weight of poverty, unaware that fate — and a hospital’s mistake — had robbed him of the life he was meant to live. What began as an ordinary working-class existence became the centerpiece of one of Japan’s most shocking cases of medical negligence, sparking debate over accountability, class disparity, and the meaning of identity. The man’s story, which surfaced publicly in 2013, remains a haunting reminder of how one careless act can alter generations. A Life Stolen by a Hospital’s Mistake Born in 1953 at San-Ikukai Hospital in Tokyo’s Sumida district, the unnamed man was one of two baby boys delivered on the same day. In the confusion of a busy post-war maternity ward, nurses mistakenly sent each infant home with the wrong family. One baby went to an affluent hou...
