Jack McGahern was born at Letterkenny University Hospital on the 5th August 2015, he is the second child of Denise McGahern and Seamus Donaghey of Drumfergus Kilygordon Co.Donegal.
Denise’s pregnancy was uneventful and she was admitted to Letterkenny University Hospital for induction of labour on the 3rd August 2015
On the 5th August 2015, Jack was born with cerebral palsy, and the family brought proceedings against the HSE regarding the circumstances of his birth, due to the negligence of the HSE in failing to monitor, read and interpret the CTG, which had lost contact in the final hour of labour with the foetal heart rate and was reading the mother’s heart rate only. The CTG machine was alerting the staff to this error by placing a question mark at the top of the CTG tracing however this error was not observed or understood by the staff caring for Ms McGahern. This failure to effect adequate foetal heart rate surveillance lead to a further failure to anticipate the need for resuscitation immediately after birth with the result that Jack was not fully intubated until 12 minutes of age.
The error in reading the CTG tracing led to a profound intrapartum hypoxic-ischemic event in the 30-60 minutes prior to delivery compounded by the failure to resuscitate in a timely manner resulted in irreversible brain injury.
Proceedings were initiated by Jack’s parents in 2017, through their Solicitor Jolene McElhinney of McElhinney & Associates and the HSE defended the case fully.
By way of mediation on the 16th December 2019, the HSE agreed to an interim settlement for a period of 10 years in the sum of €2.5 million and the hospital issued an apology to Jack’s parents.
The parents expressed relief that this very stressful and frightening time has come to an end, and are also relieved that the settlement will allow them to implement the care support and interventions that Jack needs.
The case will come before the courts again in 10 years’ time to assess Jack’s care needs for the rest of his life.
Whilst the apology from the HSE concerning the failures that led to Jack’s devastating injuries is welcome, the family are saddened and weary of the legal process and struggle to understand why it took an adversarial legal process to bring about an explanation and to produce an apology.
Article adopted from the following source, Donegal Hospital Admits Medical Negligence Liability In Birth Injury Case
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