Health MEC ordered to pay R4.1m in cerebral palsy negligence claim

The Mthatha high court has ordered Eastern Cape health MEC Ntandokazi Capa to pay more than R4.1m in a negligence claim. Capa was further ordered to pay interest on the amounts, at the prevailing legal rate, from 30 days from the date of judgment to the date of final payment, and the plaintiff’s costs of the trial. Judge Justin Laing ordered that the issues relating to caregiving, case management and the costs of a stimulation centre, be postponed for later determination by the court.

The department was ordered to payR1,112,485for architectural costs, R1,539,221 for mobility costs and R1,519,650 for loss of income. The department was sued for negligence of the medical staff at the Dutywa Clinic and Butterworth Hospital. The plaintiff’s child was born on April 14 2016 with cerebral palsy and suffers from permanent brain damage.

The department had already been found liable on the merits, and the parties settled the claim for general damages and architectural costs. The matter proceeded to trial for the determination of the child’s mobility costs and loss of earning capacity. The court heard the child’s life expectancy was 26.5 years.

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A joint minute prepared by the parties’ respective occupational therapists recorded that the child had a profound disability, characterised by spastic quadriplegia, deficient hand functions and eating efficiency, as well as difficulties with communication. She is developmentally and cognitively disabled, compounded by visual deficits, and totally reliant on caregivers for survival and would require a wheelchair and an Multi-Purpose Vehicle for transportation. The parties’ respective industrial psychologists prepared a joint minute in terms of which they agreed that the child was uneducable and unemployable and would require a full-time caregiver.

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