THE mother of a ten-year-old who claims a string of hospital blunders led to him developing cerebral palsy has launched a multi-million pound compensation claim against a Suffolk hospital.

Dave Gooderham

THE mother of a ten-year-old who claims a string of hospital blunders led to him developing cerebral palsy has launched a multi-million pound compensation claim against a Suffolk hospital.

Bosses at the West Suffolk Hospital NHS Trust will be hauled up in front of the High Court after Paula Carroll launched the action on behalf of her young son, Paris.

Although the official claim form states that a successful case could pay out more than £300,000, the EADT has learned that it could actually amount to somewhere around £5million.

Paris, listed as the official claimant, was left suffering from cerebral palsy following negligence at around the time his birth - by emergency caesarean section - at the Bury St Edmunds hospital, it has been alleged.

Official papers, lodged in the High Court, claim staff failed to provide the “necessary and required level of care and treatment” following the birth on July 6, 1997.

The claim reads: “The claimant's injuries and associated loss and damage would have been avoided had the management of the labour and delivery been consistent with a reasonable standard of care.

“The claimant's mother was aged 30 years at the time. It was her sixth pregnancy, two earlier pregnancies were terminated and she had suffered two miscarriages.

“Her daughter had been born in May 1996 in the USA at 34 weeks by elective caesarean section. (During the course of the delivery of Paris) the claimant had been exposed to a period of hypoxia of increasing severity during the hour prior to his delivery associated with the dehiscence and then rupture of the scar.”

While “significant foetal heart abnormalities” were noted, a decision to deliver by emergency caesarean should have been made a full half an hour before Paris was born - something which could have meant his brain was “neurologically intact”, the claim form reads.

Mrs Carroll, who now lives in Hove, was noted by medical staff at the time to be “in agony” and very distressed on arrival at the labour ward.

Paris now suffers from severe dyskinetic cerebral palsy with associated speech impairment and epilepsy.

A spokesman for the hospital trust said: “The writ has been lodged with the High Court and therefore it would be inappropriate to comment at this stage.”