Mother wins £9m compensation after giving birth to seriously ill baby she would have aborted

A mother has been awarded £9m in compensation to raise the baby son she would have aborted had she known he would have been born with haemophilia.

Ms Meadows went to a GP for a series of blood tests to see if she had the disorder after learning that a nephew had been diagnosed with the rare condition.

She wanted to know if she had the serious disease, which affects the blood's ability to clot, in case there was a chance she would pass it onto any future children.

A doctor who analysed the results of the screening in 2006 told her she did not have haemophilia, and she should therefore not be concerned if she ever got pregnant.

But five years later in September 2011 she gave birth to a boy who was diagnosed with the rare disorder.

Further more specific tests revealed she had carried the condition in her genes. The blood screening ordered by her GP five years earlier could only determine if she had haemophilia, not if she carried it.

Mrs Justice Yip told the High Court that had Ms Meadows been referred for genetic testing by her doctor in 2006, she would have undergone checks of her foetus when she later fell pregnant.

Her son’s condition is severe and the six-year-old's joints have been affected by repeated bleeds.

In December 2015 the child was diagnosed with autism, which has made treating his haemophilia more complicated.

The boy does not understand the benefit of the care he requires and will not tell his parents when he has a bleed.

He is unlikely to be able to administer his own medication or manage his own treatment plan and his autism will also prevent him living independently or finding paid employment.

Ms Meadows, 40, brought proceedings against GP Dr Hafshah Khan, who worked in a practice in south London when Ms Meadows saw her in 2006 to obtain the results of blood tests she had requested after her nephew was diagnosed with haemophilia.

The tests, which had been arranged by another GP, could establish whether a patient had haemophilia, but could not confirm whether or not Ms Meadows was a carrier of the gene, said Mrs Justice Yip in the High Court.

Ms Meadows was told the results were normal and, as a result of the advice received at that consultation and the earlier one, was led to believe that any child she had would not have the condition.

The judge said that, had Ms Meadows been referred for genetic testing in 2006, she would have known she was a carrier and undergone foetal testing.

That would have disclosed that the foetus was affected and she would have chosen to terminate the pregnancy.

It was agreed that Ms Meadows could recover the additional costs of raising her son due to his haemophilia, but it was disputed that this applied to his autism.

Dr Khan's case was that such costs were outside the scope of her liability because the service she was providing was only in relation to the risk of haemophilia.

In such circumstances, it was argued, responsibility for the wholly unrelated risk of autism was not to be transferred from the mother to the doctor.

The judge said that Ms Meadows was entitled to the additional costs associated with both conditions and awarded her the sum of £9 million which had been agreed subject to the resolution of the legal issue.

In her ruling, the judge said: "It cannot be easy for any mother to contend bluntly that her child should not have been born."

But Ms Meadows's love for her son "shone through", she added.

"She had specifically sought to avoid bringing a child with haemophilia into the world, knowing the suffering that the condition causes.

"The fact that she says clearly that she would have terminated her pregnancy had she known the baby would have haemophilia is not the same at all as saying that [her son] is now an unwanted child.

"On the contrary, it appears that he is much loved and well cared for.

"The burden of caring for him though is much greater than the burden of caring for a 'normal', healthy child and extends far beyond the purely financial cost.

"Although this is a claim for her loss, I do not doubt that her primary motive in bringing this claim is to provide a better life for her son."

She added: "Equally, I recognise it cannot be easy for a doctor to admit liability on the basis of a consultation to give blood results which she herself had not ordered and probably in the course of a busy day.

"Concerns about the rising cost of clinical negligence claims and the impact on general practitioners' indemnity insurance have been widely reported.

"Holding the balance between these competing concerns is not easy and simply highlights the need for rigorous application of the legal principles, putting sympathy aside."

Additional reporting by Press Association