A family has secured $29.1 million in a medical malpractice case where they claimed their son became a quadriplegic due to negligence during his birth at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. http://www.suntimes.com/news/24-7/2142707,CST-NWS-verdict06.article
The payout for the Arroyo family is a combination of an award they received last Friday from Judge Amy St. Eve of the Northern District of Illinois and a prior settlement. The judge awarded the family $22.6 million, in addition to the $6.5 million settlement the family reached with the hospital in 2009.
The Arroyo’s son, Christian, is a spastic quadriplegic who has cerebral palsy and can’t walk, talk or eat through his mouth.
Maria Arroyo came to Northwestern Hospital on May 16, 2003 with labor pains. Because of the baby’s premature condition and the fact that the mother’s water had broken, Maria was supposed to receive antibiotics to ward against Group Beta Strep Infection for the baby.
But the obstetrician, a federal employee, didn’t administer the antibiotics to Maria, and during the baby’s first few hours he was showing symptoms of infection. But the government pediatricians still didn’t step in and order the antibiotics for Christian.
The infection spread from Christian’s blood stream to his brain, causing permanent damage and cerebral palsy.
“Had the federal government’s doctors followed the standard of care and provided the antibiotics to Maria or Christian at the appropriate timed, Christian would have been a normal baby boy,” David Pritchard, one of the family’s lawyers, said in a prepared statement.
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