The judgment of the Gutiérrez Ortega de Valdepeñas hospital (Ciudad Real) in 2012, during the delivery of a baby who suffered damage during delivery and was left tetraplegic , qualifies the sentence as a crime of “serious professional negligence injuries.”
The Castilla-La Mancha Health Service (Sescam) and the Zurich and Mapfre insurers must pay the mother 5.5 million euros, the highest compensation in the history of medical negligence in Spain .
Paula suffers serious consequences due to lack of oxygen in childbirth
The mother of the little girl told during the press conference of the Association of the Patient Defender to publicize the sentence, that Paula came with cord loops and that “they did not want to do the cesarean section, it seems that they wanted her to be born by natural childbirth.” .
According to the sentence, on October 14, 2012, the gynecologist and the midwife of the General Hospital of Valdepeñas (Ciudad Real) were monitoring and controlling the delivery “with an absolutely negligent procedure .” They did not adopt the necessary measures to solve the situation of loss of fetal well-being.
During delivery, the sac broke and the meconium (the baby’s first stools) mixed with the amniotic fluid. As a result, the newborn suffered up to 26 episodes of decreased fetal heart rate without the gynecologist and midwife doing anything.
The judge acknowledges that there was then “irreversible fetal distress” that caused the girl “severe neurological damage due to lack of oxygen.”
This situation has caused Paula, who is now seven years old, to be tetraplegic, suffer from uncontrolled epilepsy, cerebral palsy, severe brain damage and disorientation.
As explained by his mother, he moves his head slightly and is not in a full vegetative state, but he is completely dependent on one person 24 hours a day to feed, wash, dress, move around and avoid choking at night.
For all this, the compensation does not seem excessive:
“They have been pulling Paula for many years and you do not arrive with the treatments that they send her, because she is affected by a very serious paralysis, which prevents her from speaking, eating and moving.”
He adds that Paula needs continuous physiotherapy for her respiratory problems, with which nobody runs because “up to the age of six she has been in Early Care, then the child is supposed to go to school and at school there are some physiotherapists, speech therapists and others who help the children, but Paula is in bed. “
“Bad practice of the matron”
The sentence condemns both the gynecologist and the midwife who attended the delivery for a crime of “serious professional negligence injuries.”
This has been explained by the lawyer Francisco Javier Fernández-Bravo, who has handled the case. The lawyer has reproached the lack of help to the girl, something that the sentence has taken into account, condemning the insurance companies for not making their medical and rehabilitative resources available.
Paula’s mother has also shown her satisfaction with the sentence and has assured that she would like the midwife who attended her delivery “not to go back to work anywhere anymore.”
The president of the Association of the Patient Defender, Carmen Flores, has affirmed that she is going to support her because, as the sentence affirms, “it is about the omission of the duty to help in her professional act.”
He points out that it is not explained how someone with extensive experience as a midwife can “do so much damage, to omit what is their own protocol or action and allow a baby to be born in an irreversible situation.” as happened in the case of Paula.
Cesarean section was denied in a country record in caesarean sections
Carmen Flores asks the Government and the autonomous communities to reflect on what is happening in childbirth so that fatal outcomes occur that could be avoided.
“Maybe something needs to be changed, maybe you have to do cesarean sections even if they cost more and you have to keep the mother in the hospital for longer, because the first thing is to maintain the life and health of the mother and the baby and then it is the cost”.
On the data of the European Union that affirm that Spain is the country where more caesarean sections are done, he pointed out:
“Here we have the oldest babies, therefore the circumstances are different. It is necessary to have babies, but alive and healthy.”
Via | Europa Press, The Provinces
In Babies and More | The parents of a baby who fell to the ground during childbirth are compensated with (only) 47,000 euros, They compensate parents with 1.3 million euros for not having detected a congenital disease in their baby
