Judgment secured against Leeds General Infirmary following traumatic birth injury
In April 2010 specialist cerebral palsy solicitor Adrian Desmond from Reading based law firm Boyes Turner secured Judgment against Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, namely Leeds General Infirmary, for damages to be assessed in favour of a 5-year old child who was delivered at the Hospital in 2004.
The child suffered a left-sided hemiplegia. This is an unusual injury within a birth injury claim as starvation of oxygen, the normal mechanism of brain injury in birth injury cases, causes damage to both sides of the brain.
However an investigation was able to confirm that the injury had been incurred following a negligently performed Kielland’s forceps delivery of the child such that the child suffered a direct and traumatic injury to the right side of the brain causing the injury in question.
Boyes Turner's Adrian Desmond was first approached in March 2007 and legal aid was granted in favour of the child in June 2007. This enabled the medical records to be obtained and specialist expert evidence to be acquired from a Professor of Obstetrics, a Professor of Neonatology, a Paediatric Neurologist and a Neuroradiologist. A Letter of Claim was served on the hospital in February 2009. Following a delay in the receipt of a Letter of Response, legal aid was extended and formal High Court proceedings were commenced in September 2009. A Defence was served in April 2010 formally admitting liability.
The case will now be adjourned until such time as the full extent of the child’s injury becomes known and in the meantime application for interim payments will be made to ensure that the special needs of the child and the family are met straightaway.
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