Payout for hospital birth blunder
| Published: 26th June 2007 11:32 |
The parents of a six-year-old girl left brain damaged at birth after a hospital blunder have won substantial damages.
Jessica Taylor Norfolk suffered a period of oxygen starvation during her birth at Basildon Hospital, in Essex, in January 2001.
A compensation payout of a £1.3m lump sum and regular payments for life was agreed at the High Court.
The hospital has apologised for errors including failing to carry out an emergency caesarean.
Jessica was left brain damaged after staff at Basildon Hospital failed to deliver her quickly enough despite clear signs of foetal distress, counsel for the family, James Badenoch QC, told London's High Court.
He told Mr Justice Griffith Williams that Jessica's intelligence had been affected and she had problems with speech and short-term memory.
She was coping reasonably well at a mainstream school where she was a popular and sociable girl with many friends, he said.
'Jessica has done extremely well, given the brain damage to which she was subject.' James Badenoch QC
"In large measure, that is due to her own character - she is clearly a very determined and brave little girl - but also due to the unselfish devotion of her parents."
The court was told her parents, Grant and Kim Norfolk, from Billericay, Essex, had tried to give her every advantage.
Philip Havers QC, for Basildon and Thurrock University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which admitted liability in 2004, repeated the "most sincere and heartfelt" apology it had already offered to the family for the errors made at Jessica's birth.
The judge told Mr and Mrs Norfolk: "You have had to shoulder an enormous responsibility, and there must have been hours, days and weeks when it all seemed too much.
"That you have managed to do so speaks volumes. I wish you well and, most importantly, I wish Jessica well."
