A young boy is severely brain-damaged and quadriplegic because of negligence in connection with his birth at Limerick Regional Hospital, it was claimed at the High Court yesterday.
James Hehir, now aged eight, of Ennis, Co Clare, is suing, through his mother, Breda, the Mid-Western Health Board and the personal representative of the estate of the late Dr Loyola Kearney, the consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist who attended the birth of the child.
Mrs Hehir is claiming damages for negligence and breach of duty in connection with her son's birth at the hospital on September 2nd, 1990.
Mrs Hehir claims the MWHB failed to appreciate the significance of the small size of the child when Mrs Hehir presented for delivery. Having applied a CTG trace (to ascertain heart beat) on her son's skull, the hospital failed to appreciate and act on the tracings. The hospital also failed to seek and obtain the advice of an obstetrician regarding the abnormal pattern of heartbeat decelerations as shown on the CTG trace. Mrs Hehir also claims the hospital failed to appreciate her son was in distress and failed to arrange for his delivery by Caesarean section.
Dr Kearney, who died in October 1994, is alleged not to have properly managed James's delivery.
The MWHB denies there was any negligence or breach of care on its part or by Dr Kearney.
In evidence, Mrs Hehir said James was her first pregnancy. She was 35 years old at the time and everything was normal. Dr Kearney was covering for her own obstetrician on the weekend of her admission.
Her son was delivered at 6.15 p.m. and appeared to be covered in mucus. No one told her he could not breathe, she said. Her husband told her their son was a bit sick.
Later, she was told her son lacked oxygen at birth and next day she was told he was brain-damaged.
The case, expected to last three weeks, continues today before Mr Justice Barr.