Delayed Resuscitation of Infant Prompts Medical Malpractice Lawsuit, Ending In Significant Monetary Settlement

Early in 2007, a woman obtained a $7,300,000 settlement from a Long Island hospital where her child was born. The woman initiated a medical malpractice lawsuit against the hospital claiming that her infant was not promptly resuscitated after he had been born. In her lawsuit the woman asserted that the medical staff's untimely response to the newborn's distressed situation contributed to his subsequent development of hypoxic encephalopathy, cerebral palsy, seizure disorder, spastic quadriplegia, and microcephaly. This form of physician medical malpractice is not entirely uncommon. According to the New York medical malpractice attorney who represented the woman, the obstetrician who performed the delivery did not perform an emergency C-section in a timely enough manner given the symptoms that his patient was exhibiting. During investigation in the medical malpractice lawsuit it was found that although the baby's heart rate was quite slow, after he had been delivered, it took three and a half minutes for him to be resuscitated. The attorney for the woman argued that if two of the neonatal staff had been present then it would have been possible to perform chest compressions while intubating the child much sooner.

Lawsuits for medical malpractice such as this one are often necessary in order to help sustain treatment and further medical necessities for the family and directly for the victim for care, maintenance and medicines. Because the infant will require substantial nursing care for the rest of his life, the mother sought recovery for her child's future medical expenditures, thwarted earning capacity, and for past and future pain and suffering due to medical malpractice of the physician at hand.

If someone you love has suffered the effects of cerebral palsy and you believe that medical malpractice played a contributing roll in the onset of that condition, you may wish to speak with a lawyer, who can provide you with birth injury legal help. The cerebral palsy lawyers at New York's Levy Phillips & Konigsberg, LLP, offer experienced representation in medical malpractice lawsuits for the victims of medical errors.

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