Pretoria - Qualified staff at the Tshwane District Hospital failed to perform their duties properly, resulting in a boy, now aged 5, suffering severe brain damage due to a loss of oxygen during birth.
This was the finding of the high court in Pretoria, following a damages claim lodged by the mother of Jan Steyn*.
Judge Dawie Fourie ordered the Gauteng MEC for Health to pay R8.3 million in damages to the boy’s mother, Lettie.
The money will be kept in a trust and used towards his medical and other expenses.
Lettie, of Potchefstroom, was admitted to the hospital in February 2010. She experienced difficulty while giving birth.
The oxygen supply to the child’s brain was severely limited during birth and this resulted in him being permanently brain-damaged.
It was said that if the mother’s condition had been regularly monitored by the nurses, as should have been done, and if she had undergone a Caesarean section, the child would not have suffered brain damage.
Lettie was 42 weeks’ pregnant when she was admitted to the hospital. She experienced difficulty with the birth and should have been monitored every 20 to 30 minutes, experts testified.
Hospital notes proved that there were prolonged periods - sometimes up to an hour and a half - during which she was not monitored.
This occurred in the critical stage of labour, increasing the baby’s risk of oxygen deprivation.
An expert testified that if the medical staff had followed proper protocol, they would have detected the position of the baby’s head prior to birth.
This should have been a clear indication that it was an “obstructive labour” and that a C-section was unavoidable.
The court heard evidence that the staff pressed on Lettie’s stomach and tried to “force the baby through the pelvis”.
The experts said this should not have happened and that a C-section should have been preformed before this stage of labour was reached.
One doctor testified that by the time the staff realised something was wrong, it was too late to prepare the theatre for a Caesarean section, as it took about 30 minutes to do so.
It was testified that the mother was told to “push”, but she became tired.
The nurses who examined her at that stage realised the baby was in danger and called two or three doctors.
“They pressed on top of my abdomen to push the baby so that he could go down into the birth canal,” she said.
According to her, she heard the staff talking among themselves after the birth saying the child was struggling with breathing and that he was having seizures.
It was conceded on the part of the MEC that the absence of medical entries by the staff regarding Lettie’s labour between the critical times of 6am and 08.15am - shortly before the child was born - was “below the general level of skill, care and diligence exercised by members of the nursing profession”.
Judge Fourie concluded that the brain injury suffered by the baby was “foreseeable” by the staff.
He said if proper protocol was followed, the nursing staff would have earlier detected that there were problems regarding the birth, which could have been prevented.
“There is no acceptable explanation why proper protocol was not followed,” the judge said.
In deciding how much damages should be awarded, the judge said according to experts, the child had a life expectancy of 12.5-years and was a cerebral quadriplegic.
“It is obvious he will never be able to take care of himself,” the judge said.
The amount of damages he awarded, included all the medical expenses which may be incurred during the child’s lifetime. It also included R198 520 to the mother in her personal capacity.
* Names changed to protect the identity of the child.
Pretoria News