Morwenna Ganz multi-million pounds award ‘impossible’ for similar cases following limits on legal aid from April 2013
Clinical Negligence News : 1 June 2012
Morwenna Ganz, now 26, has been awarded compensation worth over £1,000,000 for the devastating brain injuries she suffered when she was 14 years old. This will be used to fund the specialist equipment and around the clock care that Morwenna now needs for the rest of her life.
During a hearing in October 2010, the High Court in London declared that Morwennas’ injuries were a direct result of the negligence of two GPs. The GPs did appeal against the verdict, but the appeal was later dropped and the settlement figure agreed upon by both parties.
Morwenna first became ill in December 1999, when she was told after several visits to her local doctors’ surgery in Teddington that she was suffering from a viral illness. Dr Childs, the doctor who had seen Morwenna, had noted the need to rule out pneumonia but took no steps to do so when Morwenna had visited the surgery. Morwennas’ illness, which turned out to be mycoplasma pneumonia, deteriorated overnight, causing her mother to call the out-of-hours GP service in the early hours of the following day, where she was reassured by Dr Lloyd that Dr Child’s diagnosis must be correct. Seeing no improvement in her daughter, Morwennas’ mother called the out-of-hours service again the following day in an attempt to get more help.
Morwenna was seen by another GP who had her rushed by ambulance to Kingston Hospital where she was told she would be seen by a senior doctor within ten minutes. Two hours passed before Morwenna saw a senior doctor, but by this time it was too late and she had slipped into a coma. Morwenna regained consciousness but was severely and irreversibly brain damaged.
At the preliminary hearing, Mr Justice Foskett found both Dr Childs and Dr Lloyd to be negligent, stating that Morwenna may not have suffered brain damage had she been sent to hospital sooner. He also found Kingston Hospital negligent but stated that he could not be sure that the hospitals’ negligence made a difference to Morwennas’ injuries as he could not say when the brain damage occurred.
Morwennas’ injuries have left her with a severe motor disability and confined to a wheelchair. She is unable to speak, although computer technology enables her to communicate in three different languages. Her education will, for the time being, remain on hold. Morwenna did successfully complete her secondary education prior to her brain injury and despite her disabilities, attending University remains a long term goal.
The compensation awarded to Morwenna makes it possible for her to be able to live a more independent life. She had been completely dependent on her family since suffering the brain injury but will now have the funding to receive sufficient levels of care and the equipment to make her long-term goals of attending University and gaining her independence possible.
Morwennas’ family were eager to point out that, without legal aid, the case would ultimately have been impossible as their own funds would not have covered the costs of specialist lawyers and experts. Despite this, the government plans to limit legal aid for clinical negligence claims only to children who have suffered serious brain injuries at birth or within the first eight weeks of their lives.
Morwennas’ father, Marcus Ganz, stated, “We were convinced Morwenna had a strong case and were able to fund the preliminary investigations. But it would have been impossible for us to finance the resources for the extended period required without legal aid to carry the case through to its successful outcome”
The limitation due to be placed on legal aid will rule out all future claims for adults and children like Morwenna, who suffered her tragic injury as a teenager. Her family are deeply disturbed to learn that as from April 2013, families in situations similar to theirs will be unable to bring their case through the courts and gain justice. The government has decided to phase out legal aid as a way of cutting-costs.
Speaking about the limits on legal aid, Miss Ganz's solicitor Bernadette McGhie stated, “Those affected and their families have very limited funds to finance the investigations. There is often no other way to fund the significant outlay for experts fees and, given that these cases can take years to complete, many solicitors would be reluctant to undertake the work without covering even basic costs. However, the impact for clients is tremendous. Without compensation to fund specialist care or equipment which is not freely available elsewhere, they are often doomed to endure a permanent poor quality of life with limited independence, quite literally adding insult to injury. The government reforms have not taken this into consideration. It is disappointing in this day and age that parliament has failed to provide access to justice for this group of people disabled as a consequence of failures in medical care”