subject: Obstetrician Fails To Report To Hospital As Pregnant Patient's Baby Is In Fetal Distress [print this page] 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.
After being transported to the second hospital, the patient is connected to a fetal heart rate monitor which was read by the labor and delivery nurse at the second hospital as indicating that the patient's unborn baby is in fetal distress. Knowing that the patient's obstetrician had agreed to meet his patient there, the nurse decided that the appropriate course of action would be to wait for the obstetrician to arrive, even as she saw that the fetal distress was worsening.
For the next two hours the nurse kept putting off notifying another doctor that the baby was in fetal distress. It was only when the monitor showed that the baby's heart rate too a steep drop to alarmingly low levels that she finally notified one of the hospital obstetricians. Once appraised of the situation this obstetrician did not hesitate to perform an emergency C-section. On performing the procedure the obstetrician discovered that the baby went through a period without a sufficient oxygen supply (which accounted for the drop in the heart rate) due to a placental abruption.
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.
by: Joseph Hernandez
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