Boyes Turner’s birth injury lawyers secured a £13 million compensation settlement for a young woman whose neurological disability was caused by partial lack of oxygen to her brain in the hours before her birth. The injury to her brain left her with hidden but severe intellectual and psychological problems and moderate physical disability.Our client’s injury was caused by a series of maternity mistakes, including delays in monitoring the unborn baby’s heart rate on her mother’s admission to hospital in labour, and failure to call a doctor to review the baby’s abnormally high heart rate (tachycardia) on the CTG when monitoring eventually took place. If an obstetrician (childbirth doctor) had reviewed the abnormal CTG trace, the baby would have been delivered urgently. Instead, the mother was left unattended in labour. When pushing started in the second stage of labour, her husband called a midwife. A CTG trace was set up and showed further serious abnormalities in the baby’s heart rate, indicating fetal distress, but this was ignored. The baby was born two hours later in very poor condition. She needed resuscitation and admission to SCBU. Blood tests revealed that she was suffering from severe metabolic acidosis, indicating lack of oxygen. She had suffered HIE caused by partial asphyxia in the hours leading up to her birth.We helped our client pursue a claim against the defendant hospital. Despite difficulties with incomplete birth records and the defendant’s delays, we were able to secure an admission of liability, letter of apology and interim payments of £550,000 to meet our client’s urgent needs for case management, therapies and home adaptations. Our client’s final settlement, paid as a £3,519,000 lump sum and guaranteed, lifelong, annual payments of up to £125,500pa, will enable her to live independently with full-time support. She is protected by Court of Protection deputyship and an anonymity order.Read more about this case and others on our specialist cerebral palsy website here.If you are caring for a child or young adult with cerebral palsy or neurological injury and would like to find out more about how we can help you make a medical negligence claim, you can talk to one of our specialist solicitors, free and confidentially, by contacting us at cerebralpalsy@boyesturner.com.
