The Contentious-Administrative Chamber of the Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands has dismissed the appeal filed by the Canary Islands Health Service against the judgment of the Contentious-Administrative Court Number 6 of Las Palmas, which condemned said entity to pay compensation of 600,000 euros plus interest to a family from Lanzarote, for the serious neurological damage caused to a baby during a birth that lasted for more than 13 hours, without an urgent cesarean section being performed despite the existence of several indicators that warned of the danger of fetal distress.
The judgment issued by the First Section of the High Court on November 19, 2018, which was declared final on January 21 of this year, rejects the reasons alleged by the Canary Islands Health Service against the judgment issued in the first instance and confirms that the action of the Gynecology Service of the Maternal and Child Hospital of Las Palmas was incorrect for not having adopted the measures (urgent cesarean section) that could have avoided the intense fetal distress suffered by the baby during the delivery process, which caused cerebral palsy with a degree of permanent disability greater than 85%.
The High Court concludes in the reasoning of its judgment that "during childbirth the appropriate diagnosis was not issued, namely, fetal hypoxia during childbirth, so that the lack of diagnosis determined the absence of the necessary means to avoid fetal distress, which was the direct cause of the neurological suffering suffered by the child, adding that the failure to detect fetal hypoxia, either by not using the appropriate diagnostic means, or by not correctly interpreting the results of those used during childbirth, constitutes a serious diagnostic error, in addition to not performing a cesarean section in time, which determines the existence of full patrimonial responsibility of the administration".
Two decades of struggle
Among other arguments, the Canary Islands Health Service claimed in its appeal that "prevalence should be given to the expert report of Dr. García Hernández" because of his specialty (professor and head of gynecology at the Maternal and Child Hospital of Las Palmas), compared to the opinion issued in the lawsuit by the expert proposed by the complainants, Dr. Santana González (expert in brain damage assessment), an argument that the Chamber has rejected, assessing both expert reports together with the other evidence and reports that were made during this long procedure, in which the parents of the minor have been defended by the lawyers Agustín Domingo Acosta and Javier Navarro.
The events occurred in October 1999 at the Maternal and Child Hospital of Gran Canaria and initially the parents filed a claim for patrimonial responsibility with the Canary Islands Health Service, which was rejected in 2013, since the center defended that it had acted correctly, denying that the injuries suffered by the child were a consequence of the health care provided during childbirth. It was then that this family went to the Courts, which have now firmly sided with them.
For its part, the Canary Islands Health Service already issued a resolution on January 23, agreeing to pay the compensation to which it was condemned in this judicial process, which amounts to a total of 1,025,658.91 euros.
