ALEXANDER ZHENG'S cot is still unassembled in a Hurstville apartment, where he has never been.

Home, for now, is a bassinet wedged into a room in the high-dependency unit of St George Hospital, where the two-month-old's mother lies catastrophically injured.

Grace Wang's spinal canal was injected with powerful antiseptic instead of anaesthetic in what should have been a routine epidural to ease the pain of her first child's birth.

The Herald understands the two substances had been transferred to separate metal dishes on the sterile table, contravening the standard practice of drawing them directly from their packaging into a syringe to avoid confusion.