Junta's health service ordered to pay two million euros to a couple whose baby was disabled for life at birth

A court in Malaga has ordered the Andalusian Health Service (SAS) to pay 2.6 million euros in compensation to a family after a delivery at the Clínico hospital left a baby disabled for life.

The woman went to the Emergency department at the hospital for the first time on 2 October 2014, when she was 38 weeks pregnant and having contractions. She was sent home soon afterwards, but went back again the next day and was admitted.

Later that month, after five days of pleading with surgeons to carry out a caesarean, this was finally done on 17 October. According to lawyer Damián Vázquez of the Patient Ombudsman association, who represented the couple, the mother ended up with a detached placenta, and the baby suffered ischemic hypoxia.

This resulted in the baby girl being born in cardio-respiratory arrest and needed to be resuscitated, intubated and given adrenalin. She has been diagnosed as 95 per cent disabled and is totally dependent.

The court found that the medical attention had been inadequate and the delay in carrying out the caesarean had caused disproportionate damage and suffering to the baby. The judge said not enough necessary action or appropriate steps had been taken, resulting in lifelong consequences for the baby.

The lawyer says this compensation is important because it will help the parents to obtain the help and specialist attention their daughter will need all her life, as she is completely dependent, but “even so, all the money in the world could not repair the immense harm that was done,” he says.