The NHS has recently paid out on a medical negligence claim for brain damage to a mother from London whose son suffered severe oxygen deprivation prior to his birth, accident claim experts say.
Ronak Patel, now twenty nine years of age, was deprived of oxygen before his birth in North West London’s Northwick Park Hospital, leaving him with an inability to stand or sit without the aid of others and with limitations to his vision and speech. Mr Patel also has no use of his legs or arms as a result of the oxygen deprivation, according to the personal injury claims made on behalf of him by his mother.
According to a recent article appearing in the London Evening Standard newspaper, hospital staff neglected to diagnose Mr Patel’s mother, Smita Patel, with appendicitis while she was pregnant. This diagnostic failure led to Mr Patel’s injuries.
Mrs Patel, fifty seven years of age, told the London Evening Standard that her family has battled long and hard to secure her son compensatory damages in order to provide him with the 24 hour a day care and expensive medical equipment he will need for the rest of his life. The dutiful mother originally launched her personal injury compensation claim in 2005 against the NHS Trust for North West London Hospitals, with Mrs Patel’s legal team making the argument that the immediate performance of an appendectomy on the expectant mother upon admittance to hospital would have prevented her son from suffering from oxygen deprivation.
While the NHS Trust was initially only willing to pay 55 per cent of the total damages sought after by Mrs Patel, a settlement was reached for 90 per cent of the figure.