Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) has been ordered to pay a historic sum of £20 million to a young woman who has suffered for more than 18 years as a result of medical negligence which took place when she was a baby.
British media reported on Monday that the unidentified teenager would receive a lump sum of £2.1 million and annual payments of £203,000 for the rest of her life as a compensation for negligence in the University hospital of Wales in Cardiff in February 2000 when she was starved of oxygen.
The oxygen starvation resulted in catastrophic brain injuries in the baby while she also developed complications at five months old when doctors tried to correct a malformed esophagus in an operation.
A judge ruled last month that doctors at the NHS facility had failed to adequately ventilate the baby before and after her respiratory arrest.
Justice Robert Harrison of the high court in the Welsh capital announced the financial…