Personal injury advice from
Thompsons Solicitors
£50,000 Compensation Awarded in Medical Negligence Claim
20th July 2009
Our specialist personal injury lawyers recently acted on behalf of a young man who suffered serious health problems as a result of medical negligence.
Medical Negligence
Our client was born with a benign tumour in his brain which caused regular seizures and other physical and behavioural problems. Various treatments, including medication and surgery, had failed to offer any improvement.
He and his mother were told about an experimental operation with the potential to reduce the seizures and improve his quality of life, which had been successful for children in the past. They were given very little time to decide upon whether or not to go ahead, but decided to do so as the doctors seemed confident of the prospects of a good outcome.
Following the procedure however our client continued to suffer the seizures and they became worse than before. He also developed an almost complete loss of short-term memory, an underactive thyroid, dyslexia and increased obsessive compulsive behaviour.
Although he was able to attend a mainstream college before the operation, he can no longer continue with his studies. He also has difficulty with many aspects of general life and social situations due to the memory loss, and the thyroid condition has led to serious weight gain.
Compensation Claim
The claimant’s mother felt that the doctors who treated him were negligent. They failed to provide a full range of options for consideration, including an alternative operation that could have been performed, or the option not to use any treatment at all. There was also a failure to provide a comprehensive account of the risks in our client’s particular case. As he had some existing history of psychiatric concerns, a full assessment should have been made and taken into account as the risks of exacerbating these were significant with this type of surgery.
The operation had mainly been carried out on patients who were severely disabled in the past and the risks were well balanced with the risks of the conditions from which they already suffered. In this case however, our client had relatively good cognitive function and significant risk of damage to his memory would clearly have a much greater impact on his quality of life.
The complicated information that he and his mother had to take in was not provided clearly in writing and with enough time for them to consider it.
Our lawyers were instructed to handle the matter on the claimant’s behalf and court proceedings were commenced. It was not necessary for the case to proceed to trial however, as negotiations were made with the other side and a settlement of £50,000 in damages was agreed upon.
Specialist Medical Negligence Advice
If you or a member of your family has suffered an injury or illness due to medical negligence, you may be entitled to make a compensation claim. The cases can be complicated and you will need the best possible injury claim advice from a specialist medical negligence solicitor to guide you through the process.
At The Legal Line, our solicitors are experts in all areas of personal injury and medical negligence, with extensive experience in cases involving surgical errors, misdiagnosis, informed consent, birth injuries and a range of other matters. Contact us on 0800 0328511 for confidential, expert personal injury claim advice, or complete an online claim enquiry form and we will call you back.
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