One injured child that suffered brain damage at birth due to medical negligence has recently been awarded a £6 million personal injury compensation package.
According to a report released by This is Lancashire, the boy was born in Blackburn’s Queen’s Park Hospital. The mother of the child – who remained anonymous to avoid media attention– was delivering normally until the baby began to develop an abnormal heart rhythm.
Such abnormalities are signs of distress in the baby during childbirth. Standard medical procedure in such a situation is for hospital staff to carefully monitor the child’s condition. Sometimes a caesarean or the use of forceps are employed in order to provide care for the newborn child. However in this case medical practitioners gave the mother a drug designed to facilitate delivery by increasing the strength of her contractions. One of the known side effects of the drug is to both cause or exacerbate distress, which occurred during the delivery. Administering the drug caused asphyxiation in the young child, and the oxygen supply to his brain was cut off.
This resulted with the child being born with cerebral palsy and severe brain damage. These conditions affect both brain function and body movement in its victims. As a result the boy will need constant medical care for as long as he will live.
The boy’s family decided to file a medical negligence personal injury claim against East Lancashire Hospitals NHS. It was the family’s hope to have the hospital, whom they felt was responsible for the mismanaged birth of the child, to provide for the child’s medical care. Eight years passed before the Trust admitted liability for the boy’s injury claims however. Now that the NHS Trust will be making yearly payments of £100,000 for the boy’s care. These payments will increase to £185,000 a year once the child reaches the age of 18.