My friend thinks i should consider legal advice, what would you do? *PLEASE DONT READ IF YOUR ABOUT TO HAVE A C-SECTION*

[ManyMonkeys]

I had my baby by elective c-section on the 1st of this month, and the spinal anaesthetic was very good to start with, i felt (but with no pain) the first incision but as they cut deeper i felt it more and more until i was in quite abit of pain, by the time they delivered dd it was excruciating, and the spinal was all but worn out half way through the whole thing, i really didnt want to be knocked out so i ended up HIGHLY drugged up and still in alot of pain for the rest of the op, my mum who was with me had to leave and they took my baby away as i was so out of it It was quite an awful experience, and my friend is urging me to see a medical solicitor, but im really quite against this habiit people have of 'suing' everyone for everything, the whole world seems to have gone 'compensation' mad, but even my cousin today said i should do something. What do you think? I think its just 'one of those things' and was no-ones fault......

Ok, (declares interest), I am solicitor doing medical cases.

Really sorry to hear what you have been through. Hope you are ok.

Only you can decide whether you want to take legal action against the hospital. In the circumstances you describe you could most likely find a solicitor who would take your case on, on a "no win no fee basis" (i.e. you don't pay anything for their fees if you don't win your claim).

However, this will be a long process. Your solicitor will most likely obtain your hospital notes, and then obtain an expert report (from a Consultant Anaesthetist) to comment upon the standard of treatment you have received.

To succeed in a claim you have to show three things:

1. that the hospital owed you a duty of care (which they will have done here)

2. that they breached that duty of care (this will only be the case if the expert considers that the standard of your treatment fell below a reasonable standard)

3. that the hospital's breach of their duty of care caused you loss (in your case, pain and suffering, being out of it etc)

Your problems are going to be: sometimes anaesthetics do unfortunately fail (the expert would comment upon that) and that you declined a general anaesthetic.

I have been in a situation before where I had the option of suing (where I was almost certainly going to be successful) and didn't, because moving on with my life was more important to me then.

It is up to you though, don't be pushed into anything you're not comfortable with.

Alternatives are, as others have helpfully posted, to speak to the Consultant responsible for your care, or a complaint via PALS etc.

Mrsmargate it's outlined on the consent form all that can go wrong with a caesarean/epidural/spinal block including that the epidural or spinal sometimes won't work or will fail. So if you're unlucky enough for that to happen to you then it essentially boils down to you being one of the unlucky ones. It's not through negligence that spinals fail or epidurals go wrong. As far as we can gather from the OP's post all due process was followed and she was offered the option of being pain-free via a General Anaesthetic which she (understandably) declined. By all means 'get to the bottom' of what happened - I really think it can help to have a moment-by-moment understanding of the events surrounding a traumatic delivery - but I think the OP would be better served by speaking to her PALS/consultant, etc. than a medical solicitor. Perhaps as part of her PALS meeting she could discuss ways in which the situation could have been improved for her (debriefing straight after the op, etc.) and ask for this to be implemented for future patients that this happens to. I did this and it was hugely cathartic to think that perhaps someone else would benefit from lessons learnt from my experience.

Personally I wouldn't necessarily sue but I would arrange a meeting to explain what happened and why you don't think its acceptible. They need to know.

Have thought about this long and hard, and read all replys/advice (thankyou) and i have decided to just forget about it, as kitstwins says, all that can go wrong is stated on the consent form, so i was just unlucky with regard to the spinal, in all other aspects im VERY lucky - my new dd is beautiful, gorgeous, perfect and im very grateful!

As another anaesthetist I would say that if you are unhappy (sounds like it) then you should arrange to speak to one of the consultant anaesthetists for a debrief - pals should be able to help arrange this.

Sometimes chatting through the notes and understanding what was done can make a difference. (See the various debriefing threads elsewhere on here)

Sadly, failure can happen and most anaesthetists will discuss it in their pre op chat. However if someone experiences sensation during their op but remains adamant that they won't have a GA we can't really go against their wishes.

I think I would at least want to know that everything had been done correctly. Certainly I accept that even properly administered anaesthetics at the correct dose can fail in individual cases, but it's not clear to me from what you've written that this is what happened.

I'd at least want to know that there was no error and I think that would enable me to move on easier. YMMV!

And many congratulations on the birth of your baby.

baby1ontheway the exact same thing happened to me. He didn't give ANY time for the LA to work and I still remember the feeling of the suture pulling through my flesh. Horrible horrible.