The Gauteng Government and its Departments of Health and Social Development are liable for 100% of the damages a baby suffered during birth 17 years ago at Chris Hani Baragwanath, when he was deprived of oxygen during labour, resulting in cerebral palsy, a judge found last week.
Gauteng High Court (Johannesburg) Judge LR Adams said: “The defendant is liable for 100% of the damages that are proven or agreed to be due to the plaintiff in her capacity as parent and natural guardian of her minor child arising from his brain injury.”
The baby, weighing 3 190g, was born through Caesarean section at Chris Hani on 25 June 2005, reports News24. Adams said on 24 June, when the woman was 39 weeks’ pregnant, she was admitted to the maternity ward at Chris Hani.
She complained of lower abdominal pains, but the foetal movement was recorded as “good”, and her physical examination presented with “no abnormalities detected”.
The judge said that 24 hours later, an emergency Caesarean section was performed after “no progress during labour” and after two attempts at vacuum extraction failed.
“(The) plaintiff’s baby was delivered by Caesarean, some seven hours after the procedure had been booked by the medical and nursing staff.
“The child had suffered a hypoxic-ischaemic injury (HIE) during the birth process, which resulted in cerebral palsy. The post-delivery clinical notes recorded, inter alia, that the baby had suffered birth asphyxia,” he said, caused by oxygen deprivation and limited blood flow.
The woman later sued the provincial government as well as the two departments, saying the staff were negligent in failing to assess her labour properly or adequately, and failed to monitor her labour and foetus' well-being regularly or take appropriate action to prevent further distress to the foetus and prevent it from suffering any harm.
Finally, said the court papers, doctors and nurses failed to timeously deliver the baby by Caesarean section when they realised labour was not progressing as it should, and that the foetus was in distress.
After birth, the child had feeding difficulties and suffered convulsions and seizures. Now 17, he suffers from cerebral palsy, has a profound intellectual disability, can't walk, has speech difficulties and suffers from seizures.
The Health Department denied liability, saying staff did not act negligently, but the judge ruled that the standard of care received by the woman was below par, “way far below par”.
“This is the very definition of negligence,” he said. Health Department spokesperson Motaletale Modiba said its legal team was yet to study the ruling.
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