Injury Compensation News

The State Claims Agency has already paid out 20% more in compensation in the first eight months of the year compared with the whole of the 2009. The State Claims Agency had already paid compensation of €59.9 million up to August 2010, compared with total compensation payments of €48 million in 2009.  At the current rate,  the Agency will make compensation payments of nearly €90 million in 2010.  This represents an increase in compensation of nearly 50% in 2010 compared with 2009.

The Minister for Health, Mary Harney, has announced some measures to improve patient safety.  The most significant are draft healthcare standards developed by the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa), which has now entered into a public consultation phase.

Minster Harney has said that about 10% of people admitted to hospital experienced an ‘adverse event’, and about 1% of the adverse events would result in injury or death.  Speaking about the adverse events, the minister said “Many of them are systemic failings and many of them are avoidable”.

It should also be pointed out that although the rate of adverse events in HSE run hospitals is particularly high, the HSE is not always responsible, such as the recent DePuy recall.

A jury at the coroner’s court returned a verdict of death by “medical accident” in the case of Louise Butler at the Mid Western Regional Hospital in Limerick on November 16th, 2006 from a large subarachnoid haemorrhage, one month after she was mistakenly diagnosed with a migraine.

The wrong diagnosis occurred despite the family of the 21-year-old victim repeatedly requesting a brain scan.

The Jury has recommended that patients who present at hospitals with persistent and severe headaches should receive Cat scans  as soon as possible.

The Health and Safety Executive had already apologised in the High Court in July during proceedings and also made  a compensation payment to the family of Louise Butler.

There has been much commentary in the media about the new Health Services Executive (HSE) chief executive Cathal Magee facing a difficult first year implementing significant budget cuts. However, he also has a significant challenge changing the internal staff culture of the HSE, which was most recently criticised by the Ombudsman for its “rotten culture of secrecy” when dealing with medical malpractice.

Cathal Magree should start by reading the paper in August 17th issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine about a program launched by the University of Michigan Health System that encouraged health workers to report medical mistakes. The program included a procedure for telling victims about errors, who exactly made the error, what steps were made to prevent similar mistakes in the future, and mostly importantly, making a sincere apology to the patient or family. The procedure also included a process for offering fair compensation.

Reporting and explaining errors honestly to patients obviously leads to faster resolution of disputes, but also reduced the number of lawsuits by 36%.

A High Court settlement of €40,000 was approved by Mr Justice Michael Peart as compensation for  the distressed family of Ms Louise Butler, aged 21, of Cappa Lodge, Sixmilebridge, County Clare.  Louse Bulter died at Limerick Regional Hospital on November 16, 2006.

The settlement and apology followed a hospital negligence claim, which the HSE had initially denied. The claim was brought against the Health Service Executive (HSE) by Ms Butler’s brother James Butler, on behalf of his family, who insisted that Ms Butler would have lived if she had received proper medical care at Limerick Regional Hospital,

Between October 6-12, 2006, Ms Butler sought help at the hospital for an unbearable headache. Her family and doctor strongly urged the hospital to provide her with a CT cat scan prior to her leaving the hospital. Ms Butler was discharged on October 12 without having received a CT cat scan.  The hospital eventually did provide a CT cat scan for Ms Butler on October 13 that  showed massive bleeding in her brain. The family claimed that this came too later because Ms Butler collapsed and died before receiving the results.

Medical experts testified that if the scan would have shown the need for immediate treatment if it had been provided earlier.

The HSE apologised to the Butler family and admitted medical failures and deficiencies had contributed to Louise Butler’s tragic death.

A survey by Red C on behalf of the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) has found that over 40 percent of Irish people feel that healthcare services they or their families have received are below the expected standards. The survey statistics were obtained using a representative sample of over 1,000 adults.

But only one third of the people that were dissatified with the healthcare they received actually made a complaint about the below-standard level of care.  One of the primary reasons was that 52 percent felt too intimidated to make a complaint. Over 80 percent of survey respondents said it was difficult to know where to make a complaint. The actual number of complaints received in 2009 by the Health Services Executive (HSE) was 7,984  which is an increase of 63 percent on 2008.

Hiqa is preparing draft national standards for better and safer healthcare that will eventually apply across the entire health sector.  The Hiqa survey found that 99 percent of people wanted to be informed when there was a problem with their treatment so it seems likely that Hiqa will propose better disclosure procedures in the new national standards. It remains to be seen if the HSE, which has a reputation for secrecy, will accept a more open approarch to patient disclosure when it comes to medical negligence.

Professor John Crown, a consultant oncologist, writing recently in The Irish Independent, said that the HSE and Department of Health and Children together “comprise one of the least ethical organisations that I have ever dealt with”. Professor Crown goes on to describe the HSE as “secretive, self-serving, dishonest, incompetent and unintelligent.”  He concludes, with an interesting historical comparison, that the “corruption and incompetence” of the HSE is effectively a form of Stalinism.
These comments are interesting from the point of view of anyone trying to make a medical negligence claim or hospital negligence claim related to one of the HSE’s services.  The management problems that increase the likelihood of negligence are compounded by the way the HSE deals with its own negligence.  It’s really no surprise that the Injuries Board Ireland refuses to deal with cases against the HSE.

Dermot Moylan of Mallow, County Cork, had a settlement of €4.25m settlement approved at the High Court by Mr Justice Iarfhlaith O’Neill for birth injuries.

Moylan suffered severe brain damage after he was deprived of oxygen at birth and suffers from epilepsy and cerebral palsy and he will need care and support for the rest of his life.

The case was taken against Southern Health Board,  Erinville Hospital,  Dr David Jenkins, and Dr John McKiernan.

The settlement was made without any admission of liability.

The family of Miriam Jackson of Navan, County Meath, has received a €564,000 High Court settlement following her death in September 2004 in Our Lady’s Hospital, Navan, two weeks after being admitted with a small bowel obstruction. The case was taken by her husband, Derek Jackson, who also sued on behalf of his three children for damages for the loss of Mrs Jackson and the resulting mental distress. The lawsuit outlined over twenty claims of medical negligence and hospital negligence – mostly an unfortunate list of ignored symptoms. It was alleged that that urine analysis results were ignored – results that found an E coli infection and therefore septicemia was allowed develop and go untreated for a significant period of time. It was alleged that Mrs Jackson complained of abdominal pain and was feverish. It was claimed that her rising temperature was ignored by the surgical team. It was alleged that a medical consultation requested by the surgical registrar did not take place, despite multiple symptoms, including a temperature of 38.2 degrees, chest tightness, shortness of breath, and light-headednes.
The hospital admitted liability in the case, so the High Court case under Mr Justice Iarfhlaith O’Neill was only to determine the amount of compensation.