A family from Alcalá de Henares will receive almost six million – specifically 5,811,391 euros – in compensation after the Provincial Court of Madrid has considered that the medical team had a “negligent action” during childbirth.
La Vanguardia has had access to the court ruling, handed down on June 13 and reported by El País, which states that in assisting this mother, “the appropriate measures were not taken to verify fetal well-being […] to assess the advisability of continuing natural delivery or for immediate removal by cesarean section”
Elizabeth’s gynecologist summoned the couple on May 23, 2015 to cause labor at the Nuevo Belén hospital in Madrid, in order to make it coincide with one of her guards. What this couple did not expect is that the professional would not be there that day and would attend this woman until the next day at night.
According to El País, which has had access to the lawsuit, the pregnancy had passed “in a controlled manner and without significant pathologies” and the couple went to the health center on the agreed date when 41 weeks and two days of gestation had elapsed. “The doctor came to see me in the morning and told us that everything was going well, but slowly. And he disappeared. Then the problems started,” the woman told the newspaper.
In spite of everything, the rest of the team assured that the gynecologist was attending the consultation and did not appear – according to the woman – until he entered the operating room. She “told me that she had come from her son’s birthday party and that she hadn’t even had time to see how he blew out the candles.”
The plaintiffs, Elizabeth and Francisco Javier, attribute the diagnosis at the birth of their son Sergio to a “negligent action at the health center, due to an unjustified delay in extracting the fetus despite the existence of external signs of discomfort.” The truth is that Sergio, who is eight years old today, has cerebral palsy and requires great support needs 24 hours a day. He cannot move his limbs autonomously and is developmentally delayed. In addition, the little one suffers from epilepsy, diagnosed in 2019. Irreversible sequelae caused by the lack of oxygen (hypoxia) that the woman suffered during childbirth.
The insurance company SegurCaixa Adeslas, to which Elisabeth had taken refuge within MUFACE, is the one that must indemnify this family. In any case, the new ruling can be appealed to the Supreme Court by both parties.
