St. Elizabeth Hospital (St. Elisabeth Gasthuis)

History

2026: Gynecologist for 15 years secretly swapped donor sperm for his own and fathered 16 children

On March 10, 2026, the Rijnstate Medical Center (Netherlands) released the results of an independent investigation that confirmed that the former gynecologist of the Elisabeth Gasthuis Hospital (which later became part of Rijnstate) had been using his own biomaterial for more than 15 years to fertilize patients without their knowledge. It was established that in this way the physician became the biological father of at least 16 children.

The check was initiated by the medical center itself after the doctor admitted to replacing donor sperm at the end of 2024. The investigation was based on DNA testing data and archival documents of a medical institution.

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Фото: Freepik

The person involved in the case is now an 80-year-old pensioner who worked at Elisabeth Gasthuis from the early 1970s to the mid-1980s. During conversations with the commission, he explained his actions by the desire to help patients: according to him, he resorted to substitution "several times" in cases where the planned donor did not appear, and the woman risked missing the fertility cycle.

He did not inform the patients. There was no formal donor accounting system in those years, the maps indicated only the mark "A.I.D." (artificial insemination by a donor), which made the process anonymous.

In December 2025, at a meeting with researchers, the gynecologist named the names and dates of birth of 13 children conceived from him. Later, after conducting DNA analysis, the list expanded to 16 confirmed cases. The investigation also revealed that the doctor is a carrier of an inherited disease (the name of the pathology was not disclosed for ethical reasons). Its biological children (in their 30s and 40s) and their descendants may also be carriers.

Rijnstate does not exclude that the real number of victims may be significantly higher, and appealed to everyone who was treated by this specialist in the 1970s-1990s to establish the origin of their offspring. Rijnstate management spokesman Hans Schoo noted that the gynecologist violated the children's right to know their origin and undermined patients' trust in medicine.^[1]

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