An eight-year-old girl who has cerebral palsy and is severely brain damaged has settled her High Court action against the Rotunda Hospital for €2.6million.
Lawyers for Caoimhe Flood told the High Court she falls in to the most damaged category of persons and is spastic quadriplegic.
The settlement was without admission of liability. Two years ago she accepted an interim settlement of €1.3million.
Today's settlement of €2.6million towards Caoimhe’s future care needs is the final settlement in the case.
Caoimhe, from The Rise, Kingswood Heights, Tallaght in Dublin had sued the Rotunda Hospital. through her mother, Marlis Flood, over the management of her birth in 2006.
Approving the settlement Mr Justice Bernard Barton said on a personal level he was relieved for the Flood family and Caoimhe's parents that the litigation had come to an end and he told Mrs Flood she was a wonderful mother.
It was claimed that Mrs Flood had attended the hospital in February 2006 and tests were carried out because she had a four day history of ante partum haemorrhage associated with abdominal pain.
Mrs Flood was discharged and continued to attend for ante natal reviews and was an inpatient from 30 March to 2 April 2006 due to abdominal pain.
On 3 April she went back to the hospital for a scan and also complained of other matters.
It is alleged she did not have a scan and, notwithstanding her symptoms, was discharged home.
It was further alleged that the next day Mrs Flood returned to the hospital with increasing abdominal pain and an examination revealed she was dilated and the baby was born later that evening.
It was further claimed there was an alleged failure to heed and act up Mrs Flood's history of ante partum haemorrhage and abdominal pain for six days and that delivery of the baby was allegedly delayed when she ought to have been delivered.
All the claims were denied by the hospital.
Senior Counsel Denis McCullough SC told the court Caoimhe's parents were very anxious that case be finally settled and that they would not have to come back to court again.
He said Caoimhe's case was an extremely severe one and falls in to the most damaged category of persons.
He said the young girl cannot take anything by mouth and had to be fed through a tube in the first year of her life.
