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A teenager who could spend her life in a wheelchair due to medical negligence when she was born at Hull Royal Infirmary has been awarded an £850,000 payout.
The girl was born in the early Noughties suffering a displaced left hip but would have probably made a full recovery if she had been properly treated immediately.
However, her condition was not diagnosed until she was two-and-a-half years-old – condemning her to a lifetime of disability, London’s High Court heard.
Her barrister Simon Kilvington QC, described how despite repeated bouts of painful surgery, the girl walks with a limp and one of her legs is shorter than the other.
She is likely to need at least one hip replacement operation in the future and in a worst case scenario, may end up needing to use a wheelchair for the rest of her life.
The Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust admitted full liability for her injuries, after lawyers took action on her behalf.
Judge Edward Pepperall QC told the court the trust had agreed to settle the girl’s claim for £850,000.
The judge said: “It is plain that she had to put with much pain and suffering as she grew up, but she has borne that with great fortitude.”
He added that, if it wasn’t for the negligent delay in diagnosing and treating her congenital condition, her prospects of a full recovery “would have been excellent”.
Following numerous operations, her condition is now “as good as it will get” and experts agreed she will become more disabled as it worsens with time.
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There was however, some dispute from the trust at the rate she will deteriorate and whether she will eventually need radical surgery that would leave her in a wheelchair.
The judge said the trust had valued the teenager’s claim at just £180,000, whereas lawyers had initially claimed a total of £4.6m on the girl’s behalf.
He added he approved the £850,000 settlement as representing a “proper and prudent” compromise between those two positions.
“No sum of money can properly put right what went wrong at the time of her birth,” he said. “That, I’m afraid, is beyond the powers of anyone.”
Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust said it did not want to comment.
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