25/06/2008

€4.35M Payment For Boy Born With Brain Damage

A four-year old boy who suffered permanent brain damage has been awarded €4.3 million in compensation by the high court.

The settlement by the HSE, who admitted liability, is the largest award of its kind.

Aaron Trimble was born at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda on Mark 26, 2004. The apparent negligence has left him brain damaged, blind and quadraplegic.

Mr Justice Vivian Lavan was told Aaron would have been born a perfectly healthy baby, were it not for the admitted negligence in the management of his birth, including failure to adequately monitor the foetal heart rate, which would have shown the baby was in distress and that he needed to be delivered immediately.

There was also an apparent failure of hospital staff to notice that the machine recording the heart rate had run out of paper, close to the time of the child's delivery and, when Aaron was born and required resuscitation, an oxygen cylinder was found to be empty and resuscitation was delayed, the judge heard.

The case was brought on Aaron’s behalf by his mother, Catherine (36), of Dunbin, Knockbridge, Dundalk, Co Louth, who has been caring for Aaron since his birth.

The hearing opened last Friday, as an assessment of damages only, liability having been admitted by the HSE, and was settled yesterday after negotiations between the sides.

(DW)

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