Mother sues over daughter's condition
A mother has been successful in her fight for compensation against a hospital, after her daughter sustained severe injuries at birth, which subsequently led to her suffering from cerebral palsy.
The woman sought advice from a no win no fee solicitor's firm after the event took place in June 2000. She had been expecting her third child, a baby girl, and up until the point of labour, everything was going well.
However, an hour after arriving at the hospital, the woman started to suffer complications with the birth and asked doctors if she would need to have caesarean. According to her compensation claim, it took doctors nearly an hour before they acted on signs of foetal distress and carried out an emergency caesarean.
As a result of this time delay, the woman's daughter was starved of oxygen this act of medical negligence has left her child suffering from cerebral palsy.
Around the clock care
Her mother told the legal firm that she looks after her daughter 24 hours a day, but was concerned about finances as she had to stop work and was worried about how her daughter would cope as she grew older.
The woman decided to contact personal injury solicitors and make a no win no fee compensation claim to pay for the specialist care that her daughter would require in later life.
She found a legal firm and explained the situation to them. She was reassured of any doubts that she had about making a compensation claim, with the support of no win no fee solicitors.
The legal firm explained that if her personal injury claim was successful, neither the company nor their personal injury solicitors would take a cut of the awarded damages that she would receive.
She decided to go ahead with making a claim for medical negligence and her case was then passed onto an experienced solicitor who dealt with every part of her case, which included obtaining all medical records.
Hospital takes responsibility
The solicitor, working on her behalf, made contact with the hospital's appropriate Strategic Health Authority (SHA) and put forward the compensation claim, stating that if the girl had been delivered earlier when signs of complications were first made evident, that she would not have suffered brain damage and developed cerebral palsy.
After several months of negotiations and talks between the personal injury solicitor and the SHA, they admitted full liability for medical negligence and agreed to pay the mother an undisclosed sum of damages for her compensation claim, which would be paid as an initial interim payment and then with further payments to follow over the years.
The woman was happy with the outcome of her no win no fee compensation claim and said, "This money will allow my daughter to lead as normal a life as possible and provide financial security to pay for her future care.
"I can't thank the legal firm enough, I thought that making a compensation claim would cause a great deal of stress for me and my family but they handled every aspect of the claim and took the strain off my shoulders."
She concluded by saying: "Most importantly they stayed true to their word and didn't take a single penny of the compensation awarded for my daughter's birth injuries."
Updated on 15/01/2010