Mother of brain-damaged child sues East Regional Health Authority
Published:Thursday | August 4, 2011 | 12:00 AM
Barbara Gayle, Staff Reporter
The mother of a seven-year-old blind and brain-damaged girl has filed a suit against the East Regional Health Authority to recover damages for failure by its doctors to refer the child to an ophthalmologist and a neurosurgeon shortly after birth.
Alisha Coleman says her daughter, Toshi Turner, was born at the Victoria Jubilee Hospital on July 31, 2005.
Coleman said in court documents filed in the Supreme Court that she was advised by nurses and other medical personnel about four hours before her baby was born that, based on ultrasound findings, the baby showed signs of foetal distress and an emergency Caesarean section was required. She said she went into labour and had to give birth by normal delivery.
She said that at birth the baby was unresponsive and did not cry for several minutes. The baby eventually cried but developed seizures and chest infections which required the administering of antibiotics. The baby was kept at the hospital for about two weeks.
Negligent and unskilful
According to Coleman, the servants and agents of the health authority were negligent and unskilful in the care, management and treatment of her and the baby.
The attorney general is also named as a respondent in the suit and has entered an appearance in the matter.
In the suit filed by attorney-at-law anthony williams, the hospital is accused of being negligent in failing to perform a Caesarean section on Coleman having regard to all the particular circumstances. The hospital authority is also being blamed for failing to refer the baby to an ophthalmologist within a reasonable time having regard to all the particular circumstances surrounding her birth and physical condition. Coleman claims that the respondent's servants knew or ought to have known that ocular disorders were likely to occur in the absence of timely ophthalmologist examinations.
She also contends that there was negligence on the part of the staff in not detecting that the baby had a visual impairment in both eyes. She is also suing for brain injury to the baby due to the delay in delivering her. She said the baby was not referred to a neurosurgeon or other suitable medical specialist in relation to the brain damage.
The particulars of injury to the child are permanent blindness, microecephaly, spastic cerebral palsy, delayed physical development and brain damage.
Coleman is suing for emotional stress, pain, trauma, discomfort, loss of sleep and consistent grief as a consequence of the injury to her child.