Compensation for birth trauma PTSD

[User334567]

Has anyone been through a claim for birth trauma ? I had awful care in hospital after a traumatic birth it was mostly the care and neglect that caused my PTSD which I had therapy for. I went for a meeting and the hospital apologised and acknowledged the care wasn’t good and a plan for change. It was nearly two years ago (meeting 6 months ago) and I want to get the courage to ask a solicitor if I should pursue a claim for compensation. Any advice on if it’s worth it?

Honestly how bitchy are some of you ! What does it matter what I would spend compensation on ??? It would be none of your business. Also this is nothing to do with the pandemic it is not my fault the nhs is underfunded it still doesn’t give them the right to provide poor care to vulnerable mothers which causes PTSD! This isn’t a competition of who has it worse people get affected by things differently and @raffegiraffe it’s about the aftercare I received when I spent a week in hospital ?

@Lou98
Ok so the nhs can provide poor care which causes mental problems but it’s ok they will provide some therapy for you afterwards? My therapy has mostly cured my PTSD but I still have PND and anxiety.
@Thisisworsethananticpated
Obviously I’m not the only woman to of suffered like this ?? Is it just ok for multiple woman to be treated this way then? Or do I just need to “ get a grip” as other woman haven’t developed ptsd.

@AwaAnBileYerHeid

Thanks for that .. nice to know your views on mental health you seem like a really nice person

Thanks for the supportive posts you’ve been really helpful I think I will contact a solicitor next week to get some advice X

I’m fully on your side OP but I don’t think litigation will get you anywhere. I wish it would. The bar for ‘damage’ is so high- your mental health may be utterly fucked but in this delightful world it simply isn’t enough. Sadly you only seem to get somewhere if your life is totally fucked beyond recognition and a total inability to function at all without 24 care.

There doesn’t appear to be any genuine remorse for any of this shit.

Counselling is probably your best option. Which isn’t good enough, but probably the best you’ll get without huge amounts of heartache.

It’s not good enough and I’m so sorry.

Yes bad things do happen during child birth. Women die during child birth. All that is true.

But that is a VERY different issue to medical negligence.

It all comes down to whether things would have been different If proper medical procedures and appropriate medical care had taken place.

If yes - it's negligence
If no - it's an unfortunate and terrible experience

And no one, absolutely no one has the right to say fuck all on this subject unless they have been in that situation themselves.

"Don't sue the NHS because it's a free service" fuck that. My life was ruined by NHS negligence. I can never have anymore children due to NHS negligence.

Walk a mile in my shoes then say that.

YABU

The problem is though after the event and something has happened, the medical situation isn't interpreted the same way as it was on the night, because you already know the outcome, so it's biased against the medical team. Like I said, it's not easy, or so black and white. Something like an abruption has a significant perinatal fatality

I don’t understand how money will fix things

It won't fix things, but it will help, for example by paying for therapy.

@MrsTulipTattsyrup

If you’ve lost out financially because of the events, say for care or equipment costs you wouldn’t otherwise have had to cover, for therapy or for loss of earnings, then I can see that a claim would be appropriate.

But otherwise, how will money help to put right your trauma? What sum would it take to make things better?

You’ll need to have an idea of what you want to sue for, and how much you’re looking for in compensation, so do have a think about this before you instruct someone to act for you.

A solicitor can advise on the sort of compensation that is likely to be awarded on the basis of precedent and records of awards made by the courts in similar cases. That will include, as is entirely normal in these cases (and not the baffling concept some MN posters seem to think) damages for pain, suffering, stress, ongoing trauma, and inconvenience over an above direct financial losses.

Some house insurance legal cover covers clinical negligence. You could try and speak to them first ?

While there is a centralised fund (NHS Resolution), payments into that fund come from individual trusts. If more people sue, the annual payments go up, leaving less funds for care.

If more people sue successfully, it is likely to be because more people are suffering as a result of negligence. I find it baffling that some people seriously think the answer to that is for people who have been injured as a result of negligence to go without compensation to which they are legally entitled. How about radical alternatives like reducing the incidence of negligence?

Do get an idea of the legal fees before you claim - they could wipe out most of the compensation

Unlikely. The defence would normally pay costs on top of compensation for a successful claim.

Also you do realise you are not the only woman to have had this ?

Oh, right, that makes it OK then.

@Thisisworsethananticpated, suppose that, as a result of medical negligence, your child was severely damaged at birth and had serious cerebral palsy. Do you imagine that it would be any consolation to either you or your child, or help to pay for her care, to be told that your baby is not the only baby to have had cerebral palsy?

@EveryDayIsADuvetDay

Would the birth have gone smoothly with no problems, if you'd gone through pregnancy and birth by yourself and not used NHS resources?

What's the relevance of this? OP used the resources that we all finance through our taxes to provide proper care. Why shouldn't she? The comparison is not with what would have happened if she hadn't had medical care, but with what would have happened if she had had competent non-neglligent medical care.

@Zig4zag

Screwing money out the NHS is really going to improve everyone else's experience. Why not donate rather than sue.

Suppose you were knocked down by a negligent driver and seriously injured and you discovered that he was basically a good guy who was in debt, albeit fully insured. Would you seriously decide that you should donate money to that driver rather than sue for your injuries?

So sorry to hear that OP. Sounds awful.

Please, though, remember that any compensation you receive is public money. It’s the money we all pay in taxes and the less there is in the pot, then the harder it is for services to improve.

If it were me I’d try not to seek comp unless I really needed it because of the care I had received. I’d want to know lessons had been learned and things changed mostly. But I can totally see why this might not feel like it’s enough.

And imagine how much better the service could be, additional staff and resources, if they didn't need to set aside so much money to cover this shit.

@AwaAnBileYerHeid, they wouldn't need to set aside so much money if they weren't negligent. Isn't that a better result all round than leaving people who have been injured through negligence without sorely-needed compensation?

The NHS has a set amount of money. If you sue them there is less money for everything else so you are taking money away from other patients, elderly folk, children who need care. That's just the way it works I'm afraid.

No, it isn't, @Yebanksandbraes. There are funds set aside for compensation claims, so if a trust is sued the money doesn't come out of their staffing, medication or care budgets.

I think suing should only ever be done when the money can be used to put therapy in place to cover the cost to manage the condition you were left with.

@Countrygirl2021, do you really think people shouldn't get compensation for things like lost earnings, the cost of nursing and other care they might need in future, the cost of specialist equipment and adaptations to their homes and vehicles? Why not?

@Krazynights34 my absolute deepest sympathies. I can’t imagine how you’ve suffered. I’m so sorry 💐

Don't you think they'd have some of the best lawyers going that would probably eat your solicitor for breakfast

What an odd idea, @sarahc336. Do you really think solicitors specialising in clinical negligence claims are poor little incompetent underdogs? Absolutely not. I don't work in the field but have worked in firms with shit hot clinical negligence departments who additionally are more than prepared to go the extra mile to ensure that grievously injured people get the compensation they desperately need. Conversely, I've come across firms acting for defendants who essentially go through the motions and/or contain some basically incompetent lawyers.

Ignore the don’t sue comments. The NHS failed me and I wish now I’d sued them, I was just exhausted and wanted to put it behind me. The promises of learning from their mistakes are generally empty promises. Only people in the U.K. treat their health service like a religion where you should be grateful if they manage not to cut the wrong leg off. If they fuck up then they should pay.

I would go into this fully aware that the bar for proving medical negligence is high. None of what you have said implies negligence. Yes, it was unpleasant and traumatic, but this doesn't imply negligence. An apology is also not an admission of negligence.

The NHS does also effectively self insure through NHS resolutions, which means that money paid out in claims and legal costs, means that their is less resources available for care.

Any award made would likely also be limited in your case, even if you could prove negligence.

Finally, would pursuing legal action be beneficial to your mental health? Most likely it would not. There is considerable evidence that those who are involved in litigation heal slower than those who are not.

Yea I have.

It took 4 years though and I certainly didn't feel better.
They never admitted fault and paid out just before we got to court

You get so many cold callers these days saying that they can help with a car accident that you've been involved in that wasn't your fault. Most of the information is about getting money that you rightfully deserve etc...
... yet birthing a small human and having anything less than a blissful birth? How very dare you even suggest you should be compensated?
Thinking you were going to die, hallucinating and being ignored by health professionals is not okay. It's nothing less than disgusting that they want you to be a lesson learnt, a training/example. They should have been assisting you physically assisting you to and from bed/chair. Supporting you with washing, dressing and lifting your child. That's basic.

Do it, with bells on.

So you got the money you begged for and feel no better? Gosh, who’d of thought it

Hi OP

I had a bolt of adrenaline when I read your update where you went into detail about your trauma.

Two years ago I went through very similar, barring the csection.

I had a botched induction which introduced nasty infection into my body (invasive group a streptococci)

I bled alot after having a pessarie inserted and nothing was done about it. They just left me to it. I went into labour very quickly and was unable to have any pain relief other than gas and air. The pain was horrendous.

After DD was born I was passing clots the size of her head, shortly after that i began hallucinating. I thought I was developing postpartum psychosis but it was sepsis.

They were actually getting ready to discharge us when I collapsed onto the bed and said something is seriously wrong.

Another big hemmorage.

I needed emergency surgery, two blood transfusions and a ridiculous amount of IV antibiotics, clexane injections, iron, tons of fluids.

I was in hospital for 2 weeks absolutely traumatised and barely slept 2 hours a night. They kept waking me despite me pleading with them to let me rest. I couldn't look after DD as I was so weak.

Nobody would tell me what was wrong with me. I had to Google my symptoms from my bed in the HDU to conclude it was sepsis. They only confirmed it after a week and a half. The not knowing was the worst part. I think I would have fared better from the off if I knew what I was dealing with.

OH was treat as an inconvenience whenever he tried to get information from the nurses on the ward and one was terribly rude to him.

I went into hospital the picture of health and almost didn't make it out alive, I couldn't understand why it happened.

I discovered that the same thing had happened to another mum on the same ward on the same day.

I booked a debriefing afterwards but backed out as I wouldn't have coped. I had horrendous PTSD, anxiety and OCD. I spent the first year of DD's life convinced I was dying, about to drop dead and scared of my own shadow.

I had EMDR therapy which helped alot but I'm still not the person I was.

I'm pregnant again now and almost made the decision to terminate because I'm still mentally scarred and scared of it happening again. I have transferred my care to a different hospital miles away as I can't bare to step foot in that place again.

I'm going to need therapy again now in the lead up to giving birth.

I wish you the best of luck. I think you're well within your right to take it further.

I hope you're doing ok and continue to heal.

Sincerely,

Somebody who understands

God there are some utter fuckers on here. The insinuation that the NHS is some poor blighted victim of a gold digger, when if it didn't fuck up in the first place this conversation wouldn't even need to be had.

I sued the nhs after they almost caused my death at the age of 21. Yes, they apologised and said changed would be made.

No, sorry. That wasn't good enough.

I cannot stand all the handwringing over the NHS. Their staff sometimes make terrible mistakes and they need to be held accountable.

Holding the NHS up as some God like creation that must be worshipped at all costs is ridiculous.