The Eastern Cape health department has settled to pay R10-million to a mother whose baby was left severely mentally and physically disabled at a provincial hospital.
The suit arose after staff at Wilhelm Stahl hospital in Middelburg failed to recognise the unborn baby was in foetal distress.
The settlement comes just days after national Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi bemoaned what he termed an explosion in medical malpractice litigation. His department reportedly faces contingent liabilities of R25-billion for medical malpractice.
In this case, at just 20 years old, Rebecca Mbeleni’s first pregnancy went horribly wrong in 2009.
The hospital allowed her labour to continue for four days, even sending her home, before finally performing a caesarean section.
By then, it was too late and her little son, Bulela, was born with, among other problems, cerebral palsy – a condition characterised by impaired muscle coordination or spastic paralysis – and other disabilities.
It is typically caused by damage to the brain before, or at, birth due to a lack of oxygen.
Obstetrician and gynaecologist Dr JOT van Helsdingen concluded in his report it would be difficult to defend the hospital’s actions when intervention by way of caesarean section was delayed in spite of a worrying foetal heart and extremely slow progress in labour.
Paediatric neurologist from Stellenbosch University Dr Regan Solomons said Bulela was most unlikely to live beyond the age of 20.
At four years old he weighed just 9.8kg and was essentially wasted.
His gross motor and fine motor development as well as his personal/ social development were at the level of a six-week-old baby while his hearing and speech development was that of a three-month-old baby.
He diagnosed the boy as having microcephaly (an abnormally small head due to incomplete brain development), visual impairment and a type of cerebral palsy that resulted in severe physical impairment.
He would never be able to sit, stand or eat independently.
Mom awarded R10m for disabled son
The suit arose after staff at Wilhelm Stahl hospital in Middelburg failed to recognise the unborn baby was in foetal distress.
The settlement comes just days after national Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi bemoaned what he termed an explosion in medical malpractice litigation. His department reportedly faces contingent liabilities of R25-billion for medical malpractice.
In this case, at just 20 years old, Rebecca Mbeleni’s first pregnancy went horribly wrong in 2009.
The hospital allowed her labour to continue for four days, even sending her home, before finally performing a caesarean section.
By then, it was too late and her little son, Bulela, was born with, among other problems, cerebral palsy – a condition characterised by impaired muscle coordination or spastic paralysis – and other disabilities.
It is typically caused by damage to the brain before, or at, birth due to a lack of oxygen.
Obstetrician and gynaecologist Dr JOT van Helsdingen concluded in his report it would be difficult to defend the hospital’s actions when intervention by way of caesarean section was delayed in spite of a worrying foetal heart and extremely slow progress in labour.
Paediatric neurologist from Stellenbosch University Dr Regan Solomons said Bulela was most unlikely to live beyond the age of 20.
At four years old he weighed just 9.8kg and was essentially wasted.
His gross motor and fine motor development as well as his personal/ social development were at the level of a six-week-old baby while his hearing and speech development was that of a three-month-old baby.
He diagnosed the boy as having microcephaly (an abnormally small head due to incomplete brain development), visual impairment and a type of cerebral palsy that resulted in severe physical impairment.
He would never be able to sit, stand or eat independently.
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