Young girl to receive €3.9m as settlement of action against Rotunda

A young girl who has cerebral palsy and is severely brain damaged is to receive a total €3.9m following a final settlement of her High Court action over the management of her birth at Dublin's Rotunda Hospital.

Caoimhe Flood, now aged eight, previously received an interim payment of €1.3m and a further €2.6m will be paid, representing a final settlement of her case. The settlement was made without admission of liability.

Denis McCullough, for the child, told Mr Justice Bernard Barton on Thursday she falls into the most damaged category of persons and is spastic quadriplegic.

Caoimhe’s parents were very anxious that the case should be finally settled so they would not have to come back to court again, counsel said. She had to be fed through a tube in the first year of her life, he added.

Approving the settlement, Mr Justice Barton said, on a personal level, he was relieved for the child's parents and family the litigation had come to an end. The judge told Marlis Flood she was a "wonderful" mother.

Through her mother, Caoimhe, The Rise, Kingswood Heights, Tallaght, Dublin, had sued the Rotunda Hospital over the management of her birth in 2006.

It was claimed Mrs Flood attended the hospital in February 2006 and tests were carried out because she had a four day history of ante partum haermorrhage associated with abdominal pain.

Mrs Flood was discharged and continued to attend for ante natal reviews and was an inpatient from March 30th to April 2nd, 2006 due to abdominal pain.

On April 3rd, 2006 she went back to the hospital for a scan and also complained of other matters, it was claimed.

It was alleged she did not have a scan and, notwithstanding her symptoms, was discharged home.

It was further alleged Mrs Flood returned to the hospital the next day with increasing abdominal pain. On examination, it was revealed she was dilated and the baby was born later that evening.

It was alleged there was failure to heed and to act upon Mrs Flood’s history of ante partum haemorrhage and abdominal pain for six days and that delivery of the baby was delayed when she ought to have been delivered.

All the claims were denied by the hospital.