‘My motherhood in a box’: Waikato mum shocked at hospital organ mix-up

Tuesday, 14 July 2026

Marie McDonald said she probably would have buried the box she was given if she had not been alerted to the mix-up.

After a hysterectomy, Tīrau mum Marie McDonald had a small ceremony and burial planned for her uterus and ovaries when her husband returned home from sea.

Instead, she got a call from Waikato Hospital saying the organs she had grieved over was a stranger’s gallbladder.

The mother of fourhad once been told she would never be able to have children, so chose to collect her uterus and ovaries after they were removed because “it was my motherhood, it was my love, it was my everything”.

She intended to buy a plant — possibly an apple tree — and was waiting for her fisherman husband to return so they could bury it together as a family.

After a car crash left her unlikely to be able to have children, Marie McDonald feels lucky to have had four healthy births, including (from left) Maximus, Molly and Mayson

However, the day before she was planning to go and buy the tree, she received the call from Waikato Hospital that left her shocked and seeking answers.

“I got a phone call while in the Te Aroha supermarket… to say that ‘I'm sorry, your uterus is actually in Ōtorohanga and you've got someone's gallbladder’.”

Her initial reaction was simply to laugh in disbelief and hang up.

Marie McDonald is calling for answers as to how Waikato Hospital gave her a stranger’s organs instead of her own.

However, when she rang back and got the answerphone for the Waikato Hospital Mortuary, she realised they must have been serious.

When the Waikato Times spoke to McDonald last week, her husband was back home, but all they could do was wait.

Health New Zealand Te Whatu Ora (HNZ) had reassured her that they would deliver her uterus to her soon, but McDonald said her trust had been broken, and the hurt the mix-up had caused couldn’t be undone.

Tīrau resident Marie McDonald says it is important to have her uterus returned after she was given the wrong organs by Waikato Hospital.

She did not want to dwell on the health issues that led to her hysterectomy, which was carried out at Braemar Hospital in May after being outsourced by the public health system.

It had taken a toll, and she had taken six weeks off from her job running her own cleaning business to recover, which also meant six weeks without pay.

However, she was excited when she had finally been able to collect her uterus from Waikato Hospital on June 25 — it felt as if the depression and anxiety caused by her surgery were lifting.

It was packaged in a small box labelled correctly with her details, which she didn’t open.

'I stepped outside and I just cried. Like, I bawled my eyes out to think my motherhood fits in this tiny little box.'

'This was my chapter I was meant to close, and it's not, it's reopened and I'm gutted.'

She had cuddled the box and talked to her children about what it represented, and one of her sons had held it while he danced around the lounge room.

The thought of how she took comfort from what turned out to be a stranger’s gallbladder made her laugh, yet she also felt angry and deeply upset.

'I took the gallbladder to lunch. We had sushi in the mall and I took it in my handbag. I was… bonding with this thing.'

Tissue damage she had sustained in a serious car accident at age 10 meant doctors had told her that having her own biological children was off the cards. Now aged 33, McDonald has proved this wrong.

“I wasn't meant to carry kids. So I blessed those organs for allowing me to do that and have four healthy natural births.”

It was only by chance that the family hadn’t been together to hold their ceremony in the two weeks between collecting the organs and receiving the call from the hospital — in the meantime, the box was mostly sitting in her freezer.

“I probably wouldn't have even opened that box, I would have kept that box closed and I would have buried it like that.”

She understood the person who received her organs had a similar name, which could be partly how the mix-up occurred.

Unlike McDonald, the other person had opened their box, and alerted the hospital that there had been some mistake.

“It’s obvious [they] can tell that it's not a gallbladder, it's a uterus and a cervix and ovaries and stuff.“

She initially feared her details might have been shared, but the hospital assured her that her National Health Index number hadn’t been given to the other person.

HNZ had now collected the box with the gallbladder, but she was still waiting to receive her own organs. She was also waiting for an explanation of just how the mistake had occurred in the first place.

She was also concerned other people could go through a similar situation, and she wanted future mix-ups to be prevented.

HNZ was approached last week with questions from the Waikato Times, but indicated it would provide an answer within one to two weeks.