Judge hopeful that lifelong care law will end interim court appearances

A young girl who suffered a brain injury during her birth at Kerry General Hospital has secured a further interim payment under a settlement of her action against the HSE, increasing to more than €3.8 million the total damages received to date.

The President of the High Court, Mr Justice Peter Kelly, paid warm tribute to Skye Worthington’s mother Colleen for her “admirable” care for her daughter, including moving from Kerry to Rochestown, Co Cork, to be close to the Enable Ireland school the child attends.

It had proved very difficult to access the necessary services for Skye, now aged six, in Kerry, the court heard.

The judge expressed hope that when the family return to court for further assessment of Skye’s care needs in three years time, it will be their last such visit.

By then, he hoped, the necessary legislation to ensure the lifelong care needs of catastrophically injured people are met will finally have been commenced.

Passed into law

More than six years after the legislation was recommended, it was passed into law last November but has still to be commenced by the Minister for Health, he noted. He hoped that would be done soon to avoid people like Skye and her mother undergoing the “battery” of tests and assessments of care needs required every time their cases return to court.

He made the comments on Thursday when approving an application by Bruce Antoiotti SC, for Skye, for a further interim payment of approximately €1.35 million to meet the child’s care needs to February 2021.

The court heard that in 2015 Skye secured an interim payment of some €2.5 million, including for accommodation costs. While proposed accommodation had fallen through, Ms Worthington is hopeful of securing other appropriate accommodation, counsel said.

The judge said he had no hesitation approving the latest interim payment offer as a very good one which would meet about 100 per cent of the costs of ensuring Skye is cared for in the manner “to which she is entitled”, including for aids and appliances and various therapies.

Communicate

Skye has dystonic quadriplegic cerebral palsy, epilepsy, is mostly peg fed, cannot speak but can communicate via eye and other gestures, the court heard. On being told she sometimes picks her own clothes, the judge commented Skye appears to be “something of a fashionista”.

When the case settled in 2015, Kerry General Hospital, Tralee apologised unreservedly before the court to Skye, who, through her mother, sued the HSE over injuries sustained during her delivery on April 22nd, 2011.

Among a range of claims, it was alleged there was mismanagement of labour and the labour accelerant drug syntocinon should have been stopped when a deceleration in the baby’s heartbeat was noted.

Had she been delivered 15 minutes earlier, she would have been spared acute hypoxia, the court was told.