It is unfair for anyone to suggest that people who have experienced medical negligence at the hands of the NHS should not take action because that will lessen funds avaiable to others?!
I have a son, who is now 5 months old and he experienced medical negligence.Before he was born, there were no issues, i had a perfect pregnancy and no defects picked up on the 20 week anomaly scan. The birth was v. traumatic, first birth and lasted days. I was having labour pains from the Sat night and had my son on the Weds. I was dialating only 1cm a day. We went to the hosp on numerous occasions but they were absolutely horrible. When i was finally admitted at 4 cms dilated, i had been in so much pain and my bp was so high i opted for an epidural.A female doctor assessed my stomach and said that the baby was not very big! (he turned out to be 7'10), which was big for my size.
When i went to push, they realised that he was not in the right position for pushing and was facing upwards? Every time i pushed, his heart rate dropped. The doctor tried to turn him around but it didnt work so they used forceps to deliver him. Ever since this point, he has never been the same.
After the delivery, he was not breathing, they had to resuscitate him. He did not cry and he went straight up to SCBU. The next day, the doctor came to visit me and said that if i intend to have another baby with my partner that it needs to be by caesarian section! The next day, my son collapsed ill and was rushed to Royal Brom hosp with suspected coarctation of the aaorta. When he arrived, he was heavily sedated and almost dying and it had taken them 5 hours to transport him to RB.
After more investigations, they realised that he didnt have coarctation of the aaorta and tests later showed that he picked up a viral infection from the hospital in the space of 1.5 days! They wanted to pin the blame somewhere and were convinced it had come from me but i was tested and it was negative. My son suffered in Intensive Care for 8 weeks, he was intubated, extubated, fed through through NG tubes, the doctors told us he will definitly have some type of learning difficulties but cannot specify how much or how little? His body was under so much stress from the drugs he had to take to clear the virus that his hair fell out from the scalp leaving open wounds on his head.
Now my son has a severe heart condition (which we dont know how he got), which RB say has been caused by this viral infection,takes 14 meds a day at different intervals and they are not sure of his future as even a cold could be detrimental to his life.
Even now, after all the tests they have done to find a cause apart from the viral infection there is none. We have a seriosly ill son and we dont understand why?
At the end of the day, we will be taking legal action because everytime i think about the suffering my son has encountered because someone couldnt do their job properly, it hurts and someone has to pay for their mistakes. I have worked all of my life and pay hefty taxes. The problem is that like loads of unfortunate people have stated above- it is almost impossible to get answers about what went wrong and why? There is no process to get these answers and so parents are forced and i am also forced to fight for my son's rights.