Video Transcript
To prove that a birth injury was the result of medical negligence, you have to gather all of the pertinent records, which typically will include all of the mother’s prenatal records, all of the labor records including the fetal tracings, all of the delivery records for the child, and then all of the NICU or neonatology records for the child. Because in almost every case, the answer to the question “Was this the result of medical negligence?” will be in that grouping of medical records. You then have to have the case reviewed by experts of the specialty you believe committed malpractice in this situation. It would almost certainly be an obstetrician who should look at it, labor and delivery nurses should look at it, and you may need to have a neonatologist look at it. Sometimes you have to look outside of the labor and delivery room; for example, I had a case where the negligent party was actually a laboratory. The obstetrician had suspected there might be a problem leading into the labor and delivery, so he ordered a blood test. The pathologist who tested the blood got results that were catastrophic. That pathologist notified the laboratory, gave it to them in writing, called them, and sent it by fax. The receiving laboratory that was supposed to notify the obstetrician we got the results you were looking for didn’t check their fax machine. They did not have a policy of having anyone in the office check the fax machine on a regular basis. It was whoever happened to walk by would check it when they were in there. The fax came in on a Friday afternoon during working hours; no one checked it until Monday morning. During that time period of three days, the child was born over the weekend with a catastrophic birth injury that would have been avoided or substantially reduced had those lab results been timely given to the obstetrician, who would have done an immediate and life-saving delivery of the child.
