Finsbury family secure payout from health bosses for girl’s brain injuries
A girl born with brain injuries after her mother went through gruelling IVF treatment has won a massive compensation pay-out at the High Court.
Lawyers for Kate Keary, now 16, from Finsbury, said she is “dependent for all her care needs” due to acute brain damage suffered in the final stages of her delivery at Guy’s Hospital in January 1996.
She relies on a wheelchair to get around and has “profound learning difficulties” and restricted vision, though she can entertain herself by watching TV and interacting with the people in her life.
Kate was delivered in such a desperate state that she needed urgent resuscitation and made her “first gasp of breath” seven minutes after her delivery.
Her mother, Marie, of City Road, Finsbury, had undergone IVF treatment at another hospital to conceive and her pregnancy had gone ahead without mishap until the final fraught hours, court documents revealed.
Kate’s parents blamed her condition at birth on acute oxygen starvation suffered in the final hour before delivery, which they claimed could have been avoided had medics carried out an emergency caesarean section earlier.
They sought compensation from the hospital’s managers, the Guy’s and St Thomas’s Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, whose lawyers on Tuesday issued an “unreserved apology” on the hospital’s behalf.
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Both Kate’s parents were in court as the family’s QC, Simeon Maskrey, asked Judge Shaun Spencer to approve a settlement of her case intended to secure all her future care needs.
Paul Rees QC, for the NHS Trust, apologised to Kate’s parents, also expressing the hospital’s “sorrow” over what happened.
Judge Spencer approved the settlement in Kate’s favour, though the precise amount she receives will remain confidential.
The court heard the settlement will take the form of a substantial lump sum plus annual payments to cover the costs of Kate’s care for as long as she lives.
