A teenager has been awarded £1.35million in compensation following a decision at the High court in London. Toby Wheeler, 15, suffered brain damage during his birth at an Essex hospital.
According to the BBC, Toby cannot walk or speak and needs 24 hour care due to oxygen deprivation suffered at the time of his birth in Colchester hospital.
According to the court, medical staff at the hospital could have prevented his medical condition from occurring had they pinpointed the issue earlier and used forceps to force an emergency delivery. The baby was found to have been deprived of oxygen for 25 minutes before delivery – it was alleged, had this been discovered earlier Toby could have “escaped all brain damage”.
The sum of £1.35million is in recognition of the fact that Toby will be “totally dependent on others for all his needs…for the rest of his life”, according to QC David Pittaway.
Toby has suffered a condition known as cerebral palsy following the accident. The level of impact that this can have will vary from person to person and it depends on which part of the brain has been damaged. There is no cure for the injury, although the symptoms can be reduced in some cases through treatments and therapies.
Due to the severity of his injuries it is likely that Toby’s life expectancy will also be shortened.
Doctor’s owe a duty of care to their patients to try and provide them with the best care possible. It appears that, in failing to distinguish the oxygen deprivation which Toby suffered for a whole 25 minutes that they fell well below the standards expected of them. Mistakes do happen and the court would acknowledge that as humans we are all fallible to making them so to make such an order the court must feel that the level of care afforded to Toby was much lower than the acceptable standard and that the hospital was negligent in the way that they dealt with the situation.
