Couple awarded €24,400 in damages for 1988 stillbirth

A court has ordered the government to pay €20,400 in damages to a couple whose baby was stillborn in 1988, due to a misdiagnosis of the wife's blood type.

Mr Justice Joseph Zammit McKeon, handed down judgement in the First Hall of the Civil Court in a case filed by Andrew and Maria Brincat against the Chief Government Medical Officer, the Medical Superintendent of Mater Dei (formerly St Luke's) Hospital, the Minister for Energy and Health and the Parliamentary Secretary for Health.

Mr and Mrs Brincat had claimed that Mrs. Brincat had been tested at St Luke's Hospital in May 1987 after she fell pregnant with her first child, being informed that her blood type was A Rhesus Positive. Their first child, a girl, was born later that year.

But during her second pregnancy in 1988, Mrs Brincat's blood type was again tested, twice, and this time the results indicated her blood type to be A Rhesus Negative.

After her first pregnancy, a woman with a Rhesus Negative blood type needs to receive treatment to prevent her from producing antibodies harmful to the unborn child, as otherwise any future unborn children of hers with a Rhesus Positive blood type would be at risk of complications. This could lead to the still birth of a subsequent child.

Due to the result of her first blood test, Mrs Brincat had not been given this treatment, known as Anti-D and the couple's second child was stillborn.

The parents argued that the stillbirth of their second child was a direct result of an error in the blood typing in the first blood test at St. Luke's Hospital.

A court-appointed medical expert confirmed that the results of the first blood test had been incorrect. Mr Justice Zammit McKeon declared that it clearly resulted that inaccurate result of the first blood test on Mrs Brincat's blood, carried out at St Luke's Hospital in 1987, was attributable to deficiencies in the system in place at the time and was not the fault of the technician who carried it out.

The court declared the defendants to be responsible for the damages suffered by the Brincat family.

In arriving at the amount to be paid by way of damages, the court upheld a request for reimbursement of costs incurred with travel related to the couple's third pregnancy. The couple's third child was born healthy, but the Brincat family had to spend six months in the UK, to ensure the pregnancy was dealt with correctly.