A federal judge in Seattle has awarded $10 million to the family of a severely disabled child who was born after a community clinic nurse inadvertently gave the mother a flu shot instead of a birth-control injection.
The Seattle Times reported that U.S. District Judge Robert
Lasnik last week awarded the child $7.5 million for her medical, educational
and other expenses, on top of $2.5 million in damages for her parents.
After a trial earlier this year, Lasnik found that the
mother, Yeseni Pacheco, did not want to become pregnant and would not have
become pregnant in 2011 if the nurse at the Neighborcare Health clinic had
given her the correct shot.
The federal government is responsible for the damages
because the clinic, which serves low-income and uninsured patients, is
federally funded.
The family’s lawyers, Mike Maxwell and Steve Alvarez,
described the case in court documents as a “wrongful pregnancy” and “wrongful
life” case. They said the case was a hard-fought battle and sharply criticized
the government for refusing to accept responsibility at the outset.
“Luis and Yesenia Pacheco are pleased that they’re closer to
receiving the funds needed for their daughter’s extraordinary medical care and
training,” they wrote in a statement. “It was a long hard road for the family.”
Emily Langlie, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office
in Seattle, which defended the lawsuit, said some of the delays were necessary
to ensure medical experts could accurately measure the extent of the child’s
disabilities.
Pacheco, an El Salvadoran refugee who moved to the U.S. when
she was 16, had gone to the clinic for a quarterly injection of Depo-Provera, a
hormone used for birth control.
A nurse at the clinic who had been administering walk-in flu
shots all day apparently did not check Pacheco’s chart and gave Pacheco the flu
vaccine instead, the court found.
Pacheco didn’t discover the mistake until she called to make
her next appointment, more than two months later. By then, she was pregnant.
The child is now 8 years old and in third grade at an
Everett-area school, north of Seattle.
According to court documents, she suffers from a birth
defect known as bilateral perisylvian polymicrogyria (PMG), which has resulted
in cognitive delays, slowed speech and language skills, epilepsy, vision
problems and other complications.
She has an IQ of 70, according to the family’s attorneys. Maxwell said that she will live a normal life span, and will require some level of care and assistance for her entire life.
Justice Department lawyers are asking that some of the award
be placed in a “reversionary trust” that would return to the government if the
girl does not need it.
https://www.foxnews.com/health/judge-awards-10-million-family-wrongful-life-case
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