$10-million malpractice award largest ever

The largest medical malpractice award in Canada is “an isolated case” and will not set a precedent for similar malpractice cases in the future, says the president of the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada (SOGC).

In a recent decision, the Ontario Court of Appeal upheld an Ontario Superior Court decision that will see a Smith Falls family receive more than $10 million to compensate for the 1983 delivery of their daughter, who suffered brain damage at birth because of a lack of oxygen. The daughter, now a non-verbal quadriplegic with cerebral palsy, had her shoulder lodged in the birth canal after induction. Physicians eventually freed her after about 15 minutes, but she was born limp and not breathing.

Ontario Superior Court Justice Denis Power ruled that the injuries the baby suffered were the result of negligence on the part of the physicians. He noted that the physicians should have recognized that the pregnancy was high risk because of the presence of gestational diabetes and should have referred the mother to an obstetrics specialist.

The family physicians involved in the case, Dr. Brian J. Penny and Dr. Greg Healey, and the managers at the Canadian Medical Protective Association (CMPA), have 60 days from the time of the Sept. 10 ruling to file an appeal.

“This decision won't change the way we practise medicine,” said SOGC President Dr. Gerry Stanimir, a Montreal-based obstetrician-gynecologist. “As a group of physicians, we practise evidence-based medicine and deliver 80 000 babies a year. One case will not change the way we practice medicine.”

Stanimir says the physicians involved performed to the best of their ability and met the standards of practise at the time.

“It was a difficult case [delivery],” said Stanimir, noting it was an 11-pound baby whose mother had been diagnosed with gestational diabetes. “They followed the standards of care and did perform the best they could, given the circumstances at the time.”

The CMPA declined to comment on the case. — Louise Gagnon, Ottawa