Valencia private hospital demands 4,000 euros after parents flee with newborn baby

According to hospital staff, the 18-year-old mother used another woman's Spanish identity card (DNI) to gain admission and give birth on 15 August.

Neither parent held health insurance to cover the medical stay or procedure. The mother and the 34-year-old father then hid with their newborn for 18 days to prevent social services from taking the child into care, having lost custody of their two-year-old first child following a positive cannabis test.

Both the mother and the father, 34, are now in custody. The police also initially detained the maternal grandfather as an accomplice, but later released him on condition that he appear before the judge.

According to the couple's relatvies, they did what the vast majority of parents would have done: "anything to prevent their daughter from being taken away from them".

The mother used another woman's identity card to stay at the private hospital, where she went on 15 August. The true holder of the card initially reported that her DNI had been stolen a year earlier, but she eventually admitted that the young mother had asked her for it so that she could "give birth".

The security cameras caught the mother leaving in a wheelchair with the baby, pushed by the father, one day after giving birth and before the hospital discharge.

They then hid in a flat a relative of theirs owns in the El Corralón area of Valencia for 18 days. During that entire time, nobody saw them leave, let alone noticed a baby.

Investigators carried out several surveillance operations. They noticed that the maternal grandfather would bring food and nappies.

The surveillance operation actually started in July, when Social Services and the police received a hospital alert concerning the mother's potential of neglecting the newborn she was due to give birth to.

Investigators carried out various enquiries and, following an extensive search operation, they discovered the location where the parents were hiding with the baby.

With a court search warrant, they arrested the parents and placed the child in the care of the child protection services of the regional ministry of social services.

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