$3.5 Million Brain Injury
The Infant Plaintiff was born at the Defendant Hospital on November 6th. Due to a number of abnormalities including hypoglycemia, thick meconium, temperature instability and poor feeding, this newborn required ongoing close surveillance of his condition.
Contrary to the standards of care, the Defendant’s personnel permitted the Infant Plaintiff to simply stay with his mother in an unmonitored hospital room without close observation from any health care provider. The Plaintiff alleged that the standards of care required that the Infant Plaintiff be either in a nursery where close monitoring could be provided or in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), if available.
At 4:00 a.m. on November 15th, a nurse documented that the Infant Plaintiff was doing well with normal vital signs. However, in violation of the standards of care, no nursing personnel checked on the Infant Plaintiff for four hours thereafter. When additional observation was finally provided at 8:20 a.m., a nurse at the Defendant Hospital found the Infant Plaintiff to be dusky with a low pulse oximeter reading. When the Infant Plaintiff was found in that condition, an emergency situation existed and immediate intervention was required. Again, contrary to the standards of care, it took nursing personnel approximately one hour and twenty minutes to even contact a physician and/or to administer oxygen.
As the direct and proximate result of the ongoing negligence, the Infant Plaintiff suffered a prolonged hypoxic event which resulted in permanent, severe brain injury.