A man left traumatised by his wife’s botched surgery has been awarded thousands of pounds in compensation for nervous shock.
The man’s wife, Julie Ronayne, of Netherley, Liverpool was previously awarded £160,000 in compensation after she was left “looking like Michelin man” following a bungled hysterectomy in 2008.
Now her husband Edward has been awarded £9,000 in compensation for the nervous shock he suffered upon seeing his wife for the first time after the bungled operation.
The severe swelling was caused by an infection known as peritonitis, which can be extremely dangerous and which Mrs Ronayne had contracted during the surgery, which was carried out at Liverpool Women’s hospital. She has since gone on to make a good recovery.
Now the NHS is fighting to overturn Mr Ronayne’s pay-out, which it fears could have disastrous consequences for the organisation.
The test case, heard at London’s Appeal Court, could set the precedent for those able to claim for shock and distress following an NHS error.
Mr Ronayne was awarded damages from Liverpool Women’s NHS Foundation Trust in July 2013.
Liverpool County Court was told he had been a “secondary victim” of the incident, describing his wife as “looking like Michelin man” following the procedure and his wife’s first days in hospital as first two days in hospital as “the worst days of my entire life”. He had suffered psychiatric injury caused by the shock of seeing her new appearance, the court heard, and “had never fully recovered from the sight.”
Describing him as “an honest and reliable witness”, the judge said: “His symptoms…were pathological and went beyond simply the distress and anger that a man would suffer due to the near terminal illness of his wife.”
But Charles Cory-Wright QC, representing the health trust, told judges in the appeal court this week (23rd April) that nervous shock victims are usually only awarded compensation if it can be proved that they have been left with psychiatric injury following a case like this.
He added that Mr Ronayne’s award had drastically moved the goalposts currently in place and might lead to many more similar claims being brought by people in similar situations.
The barrister argued that Mr Ronayne wouldn’t have suffered a level of shock sufficient enough for him to qualify for the compensation pay-out. He said that as he was visiting his wife in hospital he would have expected her to look unwell.
“hospitals on a day-to-day basis deal with people who are ill or vulnerable,” he told the court. “They go there followed by their loved ones. It is unfortunately a matter of day-to-day occurrence that great emotional responses will take place in a hospital.
“The question arises more and more often in cases like this as to whether those relatives have a claim.”
Emphasising the importance of the appeal, he said to the judges: “This appeal is not just about this case, but the concerns NHS Trusts have about claims being brought on a secondary basis where clinical negligence has taken place.
“The effect of this judgement, if it stands, is to alter the effect of the law in secondary victim cases, as the award was made absent any evidential basis that the secondary victim suffered any psychiatric injury as a result of shock.
“Often emotional illness follows, but there is not the necessary element of shock. There needs to be a suddenly shocking event which, because of its shocking nature, causes that psychiatric illness. That is often lost in the wash in these cases.”
Lord Justice Sullivan argued that the incident had no doubt been “shocking”.
“Simply going into hospital and seeing one’s loved ones and family looking peaky is not enough,” he said. “But to see one’s wife looking like the Michelin man is shocking.”
Mr Cory-Wright replied: “If you saw your loved one looking like the Michelin man, swollen and all that, it would be shocking in an ordinary sense.
“But it would not be shocking in the sense of being suddenly overwhelmed so as to lead to psychiatric injury.”
The judges reserved their decision on the trust’s appeal until a later date.