Mayday pays out £500K over pregnancy tragedy (From Croydon Guardian)

Mayday pays out £500K over pregnancy tragedy

11:26am Friday 17th March 2006 in

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Mayday Hospital has been ordered to pay £500,000 in compensation to a woman who was left acutely brain damaged after giving birth at the hospital.

Gillian Larkin, from Ballymena, Northern Ireland, has been in a minimally conscious state since giving birth to her daughter at the Croydon hospital in 1999.

Mayday Healthcare NHS Trust was ordered to pay £500,000 to the family after a High Court ruling this week.

Mrs Larkin's husband, Stephen, claimed damages on his wife's behalf. He alleged staff were negligent because a caesarean birth was not carried out when Gillian developed complications while in labour.

Mr Larkin argued that a caesarean delivery should have been carried out after his wife showed signs of pre-eclampsia a condition that causes high blood pressure, swelling, fluid retention and abnormal kidney function.

However, Mayday Healthcare NHS Trust denied blame and said Mrs Larkin's haemorrhage had been caused by a "congenital malformation" in the brain, meaning that an earlier planned delivery would have made no difference to the outcome.

But Mr Justice Andrew Smith approved the £500,000 compensation sum and said Mr Larkin would have faced "clear litigation risks" had the case gone to trial.

A Mayday spokesman said: "We can confirm that the trust has agreed a settlement with Mrs Larkin, who had made a claim relating to her care at the time of the delivery of her baby in 1999. We hope that this settlement will go some way towards compensating Mrs Larkin and her family for the difficulties encountered over the last few years and we wish them well for the future."