Olivia’s son Oscar was very unwell, suffering from earache, stomach pains, vomiting and diarrhoea, he had an increased heart rate and breathing rate and a high temperature. Over a period of several days he was taken to both the emergency doctor/out of hours service and A&E twice. Each time they were informed that he was suffering from a viral infection and not to worry.
Over the following days he continued to be sick and was in severe pain. Olivia contacted the emergency doctor again and was asked to bring him in. Whilst in the process of doing so, Oscar collapsed. He was taken to hospital and received emergency treatment. However, he deteriorated further and, sadly, passed away just over two hours after arriving at the hospital.
Olivia was there throughout Oscar’s treatment and when he passed away. This was, understandably, an extremely traumatic experience for her and she suffered from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder as a result.
What went wrong with Oscar’s medical care?
On the two occasions Olivia and Oscar attended Hospital, the staff failed to recognise that Oscar had sepsis and start treatment. They also did not have him reviewed at any point by a senior doctor.
This allowed the sepsis to spread and ultimately caused Oscar to pass away.
We were approached following a referral from Daddys with Angels due to our specialisms. They knew about our expertise in cases where children pass away and parents suffer psychiatric injuries.
What kind of claim can a bereaved parent make?
When a patient passes away, a claim can be brought on that person’s behalf as they were owed a duty of care. However, the rules allowing other family members to bring a claim for the psychiatric harm caused by seeing their loved one’s injury/death are extremely complex and restrictive. Our specialist expertise in cases of this type helped achieve a successful outcome for Olivia by helping her to make what’s known as a “secondary victim claim”.
We were able to assist and achieve a positive outcome with both financial settlements and a letter of apology. We negotiated five figure settlements for both the claim brought as a result of Oscar’s death, and Olivia’s psychiatric injury.
Thanks to her compensation, Olivia will now be able to access targeted therapy to help support her through the grieving process for Oscar.
