Doctor And Nurse Pay Out After Allowing Fetal Distress Worsen And Unborn Child Dies
By: J. Hernandez
Submitted: 2010-07-26 17:37:44 | Word Count: 664
Seeing that fetal distress is a dangerous complication in pregnancy that often includes a loss of oxygen supply to the unborn infant. Fetal distress often arises if the unborn child's oxygen supply is somehow restricted. Fetal distress is noted by monitoring the unborn child's heart rate. Under specific situations, for example when the heart rate drops below a specified level, fast action such as an emergency C-section is needed. Below we look at a reported medical malpractice claim where the delay lasted about two hours.
In this case a pregnant woman who had fallen was being admitted to a hospital to confirm that there had been no trauma to her unborn baby. The expectant mother had undergone an ultrasound at the hospital in an effort to look for any injury to her baby and the ultrasound was interpreted as displaying no injuries. As the hospital was not equipped with a fetal heart rate monitor she was going to be transported to a second hospital. Her doctor was advised that she was being transferred and the physician agreed to go to the second hospital.
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After being transported to the second hospital, the woman was connected to a fetal heart rate monitor which was read by the labor and delivery nurse as revealing that the patient's unborn baby was in fetal distress. The second hospital and the nurse had been informed that the woman's obstetrician was heading to that hospital to handle the care of the woman and her unborn child. Even though clearly having noted that the unborn child was in fetal distress, the nurse nevertheless concluded that she should wait for the obstetrician to come as opposed to taking any measures by herself or informing an on-call doctor.
The nurse continued to wait for the physician to appear for two hours. She kept waiting until the monitor showed that the baby's heart rate had had dropped to a critically low level. It was only then that the labor and delivery nurse finally notified another doctor at the hospital of the circumstances. The moment he was apprised of the circumstances this physician did not wait to perform an emergency C-section. While doing the C-section the doctor discovered that the baby had been deprived of oxygen (which explained the fall in the heart rate) due to a placental abruption.
The physician knew the expectant mother was being sent to the second hospital and was waiting for her physician to meet her there. Yet, instead of head to the hospital as he stated he would do, the doctor went home. This would not have been a problem if the obstetrician had told the staff at the second hospital of this choice. Given that fetal distress demands immediate measures the labor and delivery nurse at the second hospital became the second defendant in the medical malpractice claim by the parents on account of her decision to wait for the woman's physician to turn up as opposed to informing the in-house physician until two hours afterwards.
The infant was not breathing after birth. The Apgar scores were 0 and 0. The baby could not be revived by the medical staff. Here the law firm that represented the family reported that the claim settled for $750,000. As this lawsuit demonstrates, a doctor who agrees to follow up on the care of the patient and fails to may be liable for malpractice. Likewise nurse who fails to alert a doctor or take other proper action immediately on observing symptoms of a serious complication in the pregnancy might also be liable.
Author Resource:-
Joseph Hernandez is an Attorney accepting medical malpractice cases. To learn more about fetal distress and other birth injury visit the website
