Court declares claim for damages over baby's fatal misdiagnosis time-barred

A couple whose 4 month-old child died in hospital in 2008 have had their claim for damages declared time-barred by the courts.

Ian Borg and Nicola Warrick had filed suit against Government's Chief Medical Officer, asking the First Hall of the Civil Court to hold him responsible for the death of their son on 27 December 2008.

The couple had taken the infant to hospital on Christmas eve, when the child started having difficulty breathing, but the examining doctor had sent them home after prescribing suppositories, cough syrup and Paracetamol, despite the parents insistence that he be kept under observation.

A short while later, the parents were forced to take the child to hospital again, as his condition had not improved. The boy's health continued to deteriorate whilst at Mater Dei, where he eventually lost his struggle for life, two days after Christmas.

They had requested compensation from the Government Chief Medical Officer in 2011, filing judicial proceedings a year later, in 2012.

But presiding Judge Silvio Meli had declared the action time-barred.

The court remarked that although the child had died in 2008, the couple had claimed it had occurred in 2009.

Although the plaintiffs had argued that they had been unable to file the case earlier because their son's death certificate had not been completed until February 2010, the judge observed that even had the period of extinctive prescriptive been taken as having started then, the case would still have been time-barred.

Whilst recognising the couple's double misfortune at having not only to suffer the trauma of losing a child, but also the disrespect of being made to wait several years for the death certificate to be issued, the judge pointed out that they were still bound by the 2-year timeframe established by law, which he added, were calculate from the date of death.

The death certificate was only necessary to register the child's demise and not to open the civil lawsuit for damages, said the court as it ruled the case time-barred.