Case against health board for girl's birth defects lost

The mother of a profoundly brain-damaged girl wept yesterday after the High Court dismissed the child's action for damages taken against the Midwestern Health Board and a consultant obstetrician.

Ms Kathleen Quinn (41), of Fortanne, O'Callaghan's Mills, Co Clare, and her husband could now be facing a substantial legal bill, estimated at more than €600,000, if the defendants apply for the costs of the action taken by Mrs Quinn on behalf of her daughter Anne-Marie, now aged 13, which opened last May and ran for 17 days before the High Court.

Mr Murray McGrath SC, for the health board, said he had to take instructions before making any application and the case was adjourned to October 31st.

It was claimed there was a failure to properly monitor and intervene in the "high-risk" pregnancy of Mrs Quinn, who is a diabetic, and that this led to Anne-Marie sustaining severe and permanent brain damage and cerebral palsy. It was alleged there was a particular failure to have Mrs Quinn scanned on a regular basis by ultrasound scan.

The court heard a previous pregnancy of Mrs Quinn's ended in a miscarriage and that she was 28-years-old when Anne Marie was born. Anne Marie is confined to a wheelchair, will never walk, cannot speak, has spastic quadriplegia, is doubly incontinent and will be dependent on others for the rest of her life, the court heard.

The Midwestern Health Board and the second defendant, consultant obstetrician Dr Donal O'Sullivan, with a business address at Percy Square, Limerick, had denied the claims. Both defendants denied negligence in either the management of the pregnancy and labour of Mrs Quinn or in the delivery by Caesarean section of Anne-Marie at the maternity unit of Limerick Regional Hospital on May 4th, 1990.

In his detailed reserved judgment yesterday, Mr Justice O'Sullivan noted the "profound pain and suffering" which Anne-Marie's injuries had brought, and would bring, to Anne-Marie herself and to her parents. He had found she had a life expectancy of probably 35 years. He also paid tribute to "the inspiring fortitude and love shown to Anne-Marie by her parents on every single day of her shortened life".

"If sympathy for suffering or respect for the manner in which it is borne were the guiding criteria for this judgment, it would be short indeed," the judge said. "My task, however, is to sift and weigh conflicting expert evidence in the case and to apply well-established rules in reaching my decision." After analysing in detail evidence given by experts called on both sides, the judge said he had been left with "two mutually inconsistent bodies of evidence neither of which wholly and satisfactorily resolved the issues in the case".

It was not for him to set himself up as a determining authority on those specialist issues and nor would he attempt to do so.

He said the onus was on Anne-Marie to prove her case beyond the balance of probabilities. She had to prove that had Dr O'Sullivan brought about her delivery by Caesarean section by the 35th week of gestation, she would have been spared all or a substantial part of her injuries.