Cerebral Palsy and Medical Negligence

There are very few more important events than our births. This is a time when we are most vulnerable and most dependent on the care and the skills of others. Luckily for the by far greatest majority of us, it all goes reasonably well and we are born healthy and undamaged.



Unfortunately this is not always the case. One in five hundred babies born suffer fromcerebral palsy. Of these, in the western world, in five percent of these cases the trauma that results in cerebral palsy occurs during the birth process itself. That means that out of every ten thousand (10,000) babies born in the UK one is so severely damaged during birth that the baby is condemned to a lifetime of suffering as a result of birth inducedcerebral palsy. There are approximately seven hundred thousand (700,000) live births per year in the UK, so on average every year seventy such babies are born. These were perfectly healthy before birth but due to incidents and traumas that occurred during the birth they develop cerebral palsy.



Clearly this is an unacceptable situation for which there appears to be very little justification. Birth induced cerebral palsy is the result of brain damage caused by depriving the brain of oxygen. Except in exceptional cases where this is truly unavoidable there is no alternative other than to conclude that in the majority of these cases the cause is directly attributable to medical negligence.



Medical negligence is the failure on the part of medical staff to provide a proper duty of care to the patient. This could apply to specific mistakes by members of staff such as omissions or errors, or in a broader sense it could be extended to hospital authorities and trusts who fail to provide proper facilities or training of its staff.



Statistics on compensation claims for such injuries are difficult to come by. Quite often cases that are brought are settled out of court and the settlements are subject to confidentiality clauses. However, it is doubtful that the majority of these seventy babies a year receive adequate compensation that would enable them to achieve some degree of life quality.