A mother is pursuing a medical negligence claim begun by her late son, who took action against the Illawarra’s health service for delaying the emergency caesarean section that brought him into the world.
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Jennifer Bailey contends the health service breached its duty of care and caused her son to be born with cerebral palsy by delaying the procedure for up to two days in September, 1984.
Papers filed in the NSW Supreme Court allege staff at Port Kembla Hospital advised Ms Bailey to have dinner the evening of September 23, ‘‘when in fact the caesarean section was urgently required to be carried out’’.
Lawyers for Ms Bailey claim her son, Aaron Hoare, suffered complications as a result of the delay, ‘‘and consequent cerebral palsy’’.
Mr Hoare lodged a claim against the health service on his own behalf in 2011, but died on August 5 the same year, aged 26.
Ms Bailey is maintaining her son’s original case as administrator of his deceased estate.
She has also initiated two additional claims of her own – one in her capacity as a relative – and the second for a combination of nervous shock and a back injury she says occurred while lifting and/or manoeuvring her son due to his physical disabilities.
Court documents obtained by the Mercury say Ms Bailey was admitted to hospital on September 21 suffering from a moderate to severe case of high blood pressure, also known as ‘‘pre-eclampsia’’, and had excess protein in her urine.
She claims at the time of her admission she told doctors she had had diminished foetal movements for two days prior, and says scans carried out on September 22 and four hours before her caesarean on September 23 were ‘‘non-reactive’’.
Ms Bailey alleges the hospital was negligent in that it failed to: perform a CTG scan the day of admission; have a specialist obstetrician review her condition before the evening of September 23; regularly monitor her blood pressure; regularly assess her son’s wellbeing in terms of planning an early delivery: advise her to eat around 5pm on the 23rd; and, deliver her son at least 48 hours earlier.
She says as a result of the delay, her son suffered a lack of oxygen in the womb and was born with severe hypoxia, low blood sugar and increased acidity in his blood, which led him to develop cerebral palsy.
In its filed response to the claims, the health service admitted that it breached its duty of care to Ms Bailey when the staff failed to perform an emergency caesarean on September 22 or early September 23, and said that Mr Hoare ‘‘ought to have been delivered from September 22 onwards’’.
However, the organisation denied the majority of the allegations, including that its staff advised Ms Bailey to have dinner on the 23rd, and that was the reason for the caesarean not being performed until 10.30pm.
The areas of contention between both parties are set to be thrashed out in a three-week trial in the Supreme Court in August.
The Illawarra Shoalhaven Local Health District declined to comment on the case while it was still before the court. Ms Bailey was unavailable for comment.
