In October 2022what until now had been the compensation for medical negligence highest in the history of Spain. It was, more specifically, an error that seriously harmed an unborn child, by not proceeding with a Sufficient heart rate monitoring and lacking elements that could reveal other important data about fetal well-being. That, not to mention the rest of the inattention that he had when it came to giving him a valid diagnosis and that prevented the health workers from realizing that the fetus was suffering from a progressive loss of oxygen.
This mistake was terrible and devastating, considering the record, and it is not surprising that after ten years of litigation, they achieved compensation of 5.2 million eurossomething that had not been seen then with cases of this type.
However, this amount has been left in the shadow of a new ruling that, for one similar case of medical negligence involving a newborn, has ordered payment of nearly 13 million euros by Segurcaixa Adeslas. This will be for the parents of a baby with cerebral palsysevere delay of psychomotor developmentcrisis epileptic and respiratory problems due to a medical error during childbirth.
The events occurred in 2015when the mother’s labor was induced on a morning of June 30. It was a labor of about 15 hours, which at 13 he began to show signs of fetal distress, without it being decided to perform a cesarean section. During the remaining two hours, different methods were tried that could speed up natural birth, something that caused damage irreversible in the small one.
Furthermore, the ruling emphasizes that, along with the decisions of the health person in charge of the birth, the negligence was increased by the fact that The center will not have certain basic analysis tools which, under normal conditions, would have served to better diagnose the situation and opt for urgent surgical intervention.
This ruling came much later, specifically five years later, in 2020. However, the confirmation that there was negligence only served to open the doors. Doors to new litigation to calculate compensation and for giving the child a 100% disability.
Thus, the parents decided sue SegurCaixa Adeslas asking for a quantity of 5.4 million eurosan amount that only slightly exceeded the highest that had been given until then for a case of similar characteristics. And the insurance company said no.
Why, then, has such a higher payment been ordered? The issue began when SegurCaixa alleged that I wasn’t going to pay because, in all those years, had no knowledge of the child’s condition because of what happened at birth. However, the new ruling demonstrates that yes they knew just a few months after giving birth, at which time, according to the magistrate, they should have made a first payment.
It is in this sense that, nine years later, the judge has described “inaction” on the part of the insurer that can’t find justificationespecially considering that there could be accessed medical history at any time. This was the main reason why it was decided to increase the amount: the interests. SegurCaixa intended to only include those that had arisen since the first lawsuit that had taken place about 7 years before, a proposal that the judge has finally declined to set the start date from medical negligence. This meant an increase in the initial amount in 7.5 million euros.
In statements to the newspaper El País, the parents’ lawyer has assured that the judge’s decision represents “a open gap on the waterline of insurance companies.” And most importantly, also a preceding for future litigation. Furthermore, the lawyer has revealed to this medium that delay in payment was a common tactic in this type of companies, which always tried to force familiesdue to economic exhaustion, to reach an agreement.
On the other hand, the wait could have been long enough for the child to die, something that would have meant a much lower payment. In fact, his life expectancy was one of the arguments that SegurCaixa used in the trial to reduce the final payment, something that did not work for them either. “I think they intended to wait for the child to die,” the lawyer stressed. “It seems to me inhuman, brutal, but what can you think? Why is it not recorded? The offers they made were ridiculous”. A strategy that, in the end, has cost them dearly.
