A NSW family has sued Central Coast Local Health District after their six-year-old boy’s abscess was misdiagnosed at a public hospital.
The misdiagnoses led to “irreversible damage” including permanent torticollis — a rare condition in which the neck muscles contract and severely restrict movement, court documents said.
The health district admitted its public hospital, which the family attended, had breached its duty of care for the boy.
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The boy, now aged 13, has suffered a chronic major depressive disorder due to the injury and disruptions to his everyday life.
NSW Supreme Court Judge Stephen Campbell said the boy is also unlikely to work in any occupation involving heavy manual labour.
“It’s also the case … that from the age of six his young life has been disrupted in a material way, which no doubt has led to a very significant loss of amenity and loss of enjoyment of life,” Campbell said.
“Given the permanence of the injury, damages for non-economic loss are likely to have been significant.”
Future economic loss was also considered by Campbell, which includes the potential for surgeries into the future to manage additional wear and tear on the spine below the point of injury.
The potential economic costs of this, Campbell said, would involve many “imponderables” even well past the age of 18.
“There would be little point to delaying settlement as the imponderables would be unlikely to be resolved by then,” he said.
The settlement was approved in court on March 5, however, the payout figure has not been disclosed.
