8:06am Monday 23rd November 2009
Exclusive By Barry Nelson
THE parents of a three-year-old boy left severely disabled by mistakes made during his birth spoke of their relief last night after a hospital admitted it was at fault.
Toby Hart’s pulse slowed down drastically during his birth at the Friarage Hospital, in Northallerton, North Yorkshire, on October 11, 2006.
Medical staff failed to spot that he was in distress.
As a result, Toby was born 25 minutes later than he should have been, leaving him starved of oxygen and permanently brain damaged.
The youngster has quadriplegic cerebral palsy and barely any movement in his limbs. He is dependent on round-the-clock care from his parents, Michelle and Matthew Hart.
Lawyers acting for the couple, from Bedale, North Yorkshire, have secured an admission of liability from South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which runs the Friarage.
The admission paves the way for a long-term financial settlement that would provide the specialist equipment and health care Toby needs.
Mrs Hart, who also has a five-year-old daughter, Maisie, said she was relieved about the admission of liability, but said the past three years had been incredibly frustrating for her whole family.
“We are so relieved that the hospital trust has finally agreed to take responsibility for Toby’s disabilities,” said Mrs Hart.
“The last three years have been a massive struggle, not only learning how to deal with Toby’s difficulties, but also having to go back to hospital with Toby on numerous occasions, not knowing whether or not the trust would ever accept that it was at fault.
“Looking after Toby is so labour-intensive that we don’t have time to fight for absolutely every single crumb of support that we can get our hands on.
“We have struggled to get funding for certain specialist items from social services, whose resources are limited, although they now provide overnight care two nights a week for Toby.”
Mrs Hart said that although Toby is placid during the day, he becomes unsettled at night and it is not unusual for him to cry for hours.
She added: “Toby is able to take food orally although his feeding takes a long time.
“Up until very recently, the only way he could be fed was if he sat on our knees, but he is getting very big and heavy now so this is getting harder to do.
“We identified a chair that met his needs – that would support him as we fed him – but it took months of wading through the application process before the chair arrived.
“Now we can look forward to the future and start to plan how we will deal with Toby’s increasing needs.
“This should prove to be a huge weight off our minds, and hopefully our days of fighting through red tape will soon be behind us.”
The family’s lawyer, Angela Kirtley, from law firm Irwin Mitchell, said: “The past three years have been very difficult for the Harts, not only coming to terms with having an extremely disabled baby, but also having to negotiate their way around the difficulties of dealing with agencies who provide the care and assistance that he requires.”
A spokeswoman for the South Tees trust said: “We appreciate the case has been very distressing for the Hart family and we hope a settlement can be reached as soon as possible.”
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