As fetal distress is a serious complication in pregnancy that often involves a loss of oxygen supply to the unborn baby. Thus, when fetal distress is noted action must be taken immediately to prevent harm to the baby. Below we consider the issue of liability in a case involving a delay of approximately two hours in reacting to signs of fetal distress. We also consider the resulting damages and the settlement result.
An obstetrician is notified that his patient, a pregnant female, had been taken to a nearby hospital after she had fallen. The patient had undergone an ultrasound at the hospital in order to check for any harm to her baby and the ultrasound had been interpreted as showing no injuries. The obstetrician agrees to meet his patient at a second hospital to which she is going to be transferred in order to have additional monitoring which the first hospital is not properly equipped to perform.
Once at the second hospital a fetal heart rate monitor was connected to the woman. The labor and delivery nurse at this hospital read the strip as non-reassuring and indicating that the unborn baby was in fetal distress. The second hospital and the nurse had been informed that the woman's obstetrician had agreed to go to that hospital to handle the care of the patient and her unborn baby. Even though clearly having noted that the baby was in fetal distress, the nurse nonetheless concluded that she should wait for the obstetrician to handle the situation rather than take any steps on her own or even notify an on-call obstetrician.
The nurse continued to wait for the
obstetrician to show for two hours. She kept waiting until the monitor indicated that the baby's heart rate had precipitously dropped to dangerously low levels. It was only then that the labor and delivery nurse notified an obstetrician at the hospital of the situation. This obstetrician immediately performed an emergency C-section but found that the explanation for the fetal distress had been a placental abruption which had cut off the baby’s oxygen supply.
The obstetrician knew the patient was being transported to the second hospital and expected her doctor to meet her there. However, rather than go to the hospital as he said he would do, the obstetrician went home. This would not have been a problem if the obstetrician had informed someone at the second hospital of this decision. Thinking the obstetrician was on the way the nurse at the second hospital, who might normally have immediately notified another doctor of the fetal distress, waited and continued to wait for two hours for a doctor that would never show up.
At birth the baby was non-responsive. Even though the medical staff attempted resuscitative measures they were not able to revive the baby whose Apgar scores were 0 and 0. As this case demonstrates, a physician who agrees to follow up on the care of the patient and does not may be liable for malpractice not to and a nurse who does not notify a physician or take other appropriate action immediately upon noting signs of a serious complication in the pregnancy may also be liable. Here the law firm that represented the family reported that the matter settled for $750,000.
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