New York Medical Malpractice Lawyer Blog

An experienced midwife has recently been charged for the manslaughter of an infant who was under her care. All the charges were ultimately dropped except for injuries and cruelty and carrying out medical procedures without a license to children.

The midwife received a sentence of four years, but most of it was suspended. The witness explained that this actually meant that she would probably be in jail for five days. She received a fine of $5,000 and is not permitted to practice midwifery or applying for a license for the next four years.

The doctor remarked that it was a victory that she saw the error of her ways. This is actually fairly unusual in these types of cases, with the guilty person still protesting their innocence.

The case relates to when the midwife was supervising a home delivery. The parents were initially receiving treatment from Birth Care. However, this clinic advised against a home delivery because the baby was in breach. The midwife was chosen so that the parents could still have a home delivery.

The midwife presented herself as an expert in complicated births. She did not have a license for midwifery in Virginia, however she was experienced. Court records show that she has supervised with over 1,000 births throughout her career.

This delivery became much more complicated than it was first thought. The head of the child became stuck. The baby was born around 15 minutes later but he did not have a heartbeat due to the medical malpractice.

The midwife managed to successfully resuscitate the baby. After some time she asked the parents to request further medical assistance. The baby was transferred to hospital by ambulance and died two days later as a result from the complications at the time of birth.

The midwifing community in brooklyn and Staten Island explained that this would put many midwives off accepting to supervise home births which were complicated in nature. There is even a Facebook page which has information about past successful births and many letters of support for the midwife.

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The patient in this med mal case was admitted to a medical center in the US, where she was treated by one of the doctors on staff. While the records are not clear on precisely why the woman was admitted or what treatment the doctor administered, it was evidently something that the patient felt amounted to medical malpractice, or she would not have chosen to sue the doctor.
As a part of the statement filed in court, the papers indicate that the doctor violated the accepted standard of care for the treatment he provided and that the plaintiff suffered harm because of that violation. In many medical malpractice cases, the presence of another doctor, an “expert,” is required to provide testimony that what the doctor being sued did was not up to the accepted standards of the area the physician practiced in. For this reason, medical malpractice cases are often long and involved and deal with complex medical information, outlined the reporter.

Interestingly enough, even though the latest lawsuit against this particular doctor does not specify what he did, this is not the first time that he has been named in a lawsuit. An earlier lawsuit in which the jury found for the doctor, said he did nothing wrong when he did not order restraints to be put on an elderly woman. In that case, the woman was overmedicated after surgery and fell out of her bed.

At trial, the jury was asked if any of the doctor’s actions led to the plaintiff’s fall. The jury was only out for 30 minutes before returning a verdict in favor of the defendant doctor.
This latest lawsuit is asking for compensation for medical costs, mental anguish and impairment. Hospitals in The Bronx and Staten Island take precautions to guard against situations like this one.

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