New York Medical Malpractice Lawyer Blog

Mistakes made by medical doctors and staff, left a newborn seriously injured. A Lawyer reports that the child has now been awarded £4.6 million. The compensation will go a long way towards helping his family pay for his continued care.

In June 2004, the boy was born at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in King’s Lynn. The boy suffered injuries that were severe when, during the delivery, medical personnel misinterpreted his mother’s heartbeat as his. This misinterpretation led to the staff not realizing that he had an abnormal heartbeat. Had the staff been more diligent and questioning, they would have noticed and been able to avoid the birth injury. Their misunderstanding led to a catastrophic delay in the boy’s delivery which resulted in the fetus’s heart beat stopping. Serious brain injury occurred because of the ensuing oxygen starvation to the brain.

The family’s legal counsel genuinely argued that had his birth been just ten minutes sooner, his client would have escaped injury completely, and the sole responsibility for that should reside on the medical doctor and staff present. The boy will have to suffer with cerebral palsy and learning difficulties for the rest of his life. He will also be wheelchair dependent forever.
Early last week, the Judge at the High Court in London read and approved of the offered settlement package. It is expected to be awarded to the boy over the course of his lifetime. A source from Manhattan and Long Island said, “The specifics of his payment schedule are unknown, but similar cases usually result in a lump-sum payment coupled with annual amounts paid out to cover the cost of extensive care needs. Professional legal counsel undoubtedly took into consideration the annual cost of caring for a growing child with such dependencies, and when attempting to reach an agreement they no doubt argued those points.”

The judge was heard congratulating the boy’s parents on the level of care they were providing for their son already.

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A medical malpractice suit involving the birth of a child has recently ended with a $7 million settlement. The Judge has recently approved the settlement described a Lawyer. The child who is the subject of the case has a very rare genetic defect.

The lawsuit was filed in 2008 against a genetic counselor, nurse, and two doctors who were from China. It is alleged by the patient that the correct medical counseling was not available before the woman gave birth. The woman successfully gave birth to a baby girl which had cat cry syndrome.

The girl is now three years old but is still affected by her condition. She has mental and physical disabilities as a result of this. The parents argue that if the abnormalities were detected earlier then it would have been easier for the patient to decide whether or not to go ahead with the pregnancy. A procedure known as amniocentesis is fairly routine and this would have been able to detect the problem.

The two doctors, the nurse and a genetic counselor are all mentioned on the original malpractice suit mentions the source.

The lawyers of the defendants have denied the suggestion that they were medically negligent in their handling of the pregnancy. The hospital said that they were offered the diagnostic tests but turned them down; however, the parents of the baby girl deny that they were ever offered this.

The Judge approved the settlement of $7 million after first listening to a short hearing in Worcester Superior Court.

This includes $4 million dollars which will be left in a trust fund to take care of future medical expenses of the child as she grows older.

Hopefully she now has enough money to make sure that she is looked after correctly for the rest of her life, explains the rep.

The settlement is thought to be the largest of its type in the area of Massachusetts. All the lawyers signed a confidentiality agreement which means that the lawyers cannot talk about the case in more detail. Unless there's a case in Long Island or Manhattan.

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A stillborn baby, born at home, was the reason for a mother to file a medical malpractice lawsuit, commented the doctor. The mother has gone to hospital in April with a headache, lower abdominal pain and a fever. She remained in care for six days. In June she went back and said she was spotting. She was admitted to rule out her being in labor, as she was in the 32nd week of her pregnancy.

During her second admission, she received drugs to relax the uterine muscles and stop any premature labor and was hooked up to a fetal monitor, reported the source. She was given an antibiotic, diagnosed with cervicitis and sent home.

Two days later, she was admitted once again with the same complaints, was again given another drug to stop labor and was discharged against medical advice. Two more days went by and she returned to the hospital once again, where she was told she was not in labor and given another antibiotic for a possible urinary tract infection and send home.

The day after she was sent home with the latest round of drugs, she was admitted again and a midwife said she was not in labor and left. The mother went home, only to return in the morning and be given a prescription for Tylenol with codeine. There was no record of this visit in the plaintiff’s medical files, explained the official.

She was once again sent home and went into labor. However, the baby was born feet first with the head stuck in the birth canal. An EMS responder tried to resuscitate the baby but was unsuccessful and even though the baby went to the hospital, no signs of a pulse or respiration were detected.

At trial the plaintiff’s expert doctor said a breech born baby that is blue and has no pulse or respiration after about a half hour is considered to be stillborn, whether attempts were made to revive it or not. The jury found the hospital was negligent sending the mother home with Tylenol without evaluating her and that this was a substantial factor in the baby’s death. Hospitals in Brooklyn and Long Island have looked into this case.

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When it’s time to give birth, the parents are excited and anxious for everything to go well. When they don’t and their child suffers permanent disabilities because of a hypoxic brain injury, a lawsuit usually follows.

In this case, the parents filed a med mal lawsuit against the hospital and the doctor who delivered their baby girl. The claim states that the doctor ruptured membranes in her head and didn’t use the proper resuscitation techniques and then compounded the whole mess by failing to perform a C-section immediately, reported the doctor. As a result of this gruesome series of errors, the baby did not get enough oxygen to her brain and was born with cerebral palsy, unable to hear properly and with learning disabilities.

The parents filed a claim asking the court for compensatory damages for their baby’s suffering, pain, disability, disfigurement and her inability to ever be able to enjoy a normal life, explained the hospital spokesperson.

While it is true that cerebral palsy may happen without the doctor making any medical mistakes, it is equally clear that if the doctor does follow the proper and accepted standards at birth, the child’s brain would not have been deprived of oxygen.

Since the baby “was” deprived of air at the crucial time, the med mal lawsuit may result in compensation for the baby’s disabilities. Fair compensation is not possible without the dedicated and skilled assistance of an expert. This would be true in Manhattan and also in Long Island.

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A mother is hoping that stem cell research could provide the secrets which can be used to cure her daughters Cerebral Palsy. The 9 year old girl suffers from epilepsy, asthma and cerebral palsy.

It is alleged that the young girl suffers from cerebral palsy because of mistakes which were made during her birth. The girl was in an awkward position which meant that the mother really should have been offered a caesarian section. However, the pregnancy was allowed to continue as normal but she didn’t give birth until two weeks after the due date.

The family have successfully filed a case against the doctor in the emergency room. They have received a settlement of $1 million. Once all of the New York Medical Malpractice Lawyer fees were paid, the rest of the money was put into a trust fund.

The family have had 9 years to get used to coping and living with the condition of the girl. The young girl requires daily treatment with a nebulizer to assist her breathing. Her epilepsy also causes seizures. The full time careers of the girl are her father and brother. In Long Island and New York City, Lawyers deal with birth injury on a daily basis.

The NY Medical Malpractice Lawyer explains that the mistakes made at the time of her birth have had a serious impact on her whole life. She cannot eat normal food and is instead fed through a small tube which is inserted straight into the stomach. Her body finds it difficult to retain the food and her weight at 9 is only 30 pounds.

She tries to live as normal a life as possible. She attends school whenever possible. She has a personal instructional aide to assist with her studies when she is at school. At the moment she cannot communicate because she does not have any movement in her hands.

The parents of the girl are hoping that stem cell research will provide a suitable treatment. They have chosen a medical center in China which will implant the stem cells by lumbar puncture. This is not a cure, but will hopefully lessen the symptoms.

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