$26 Million Malpractice Award For Brooklyn Boy

A Brooklyn boy has been awarded $26 million in a malpractice lawsuit because the hospital and his doctor failed to treat him for jaundice after he was born.

According to a New York Daily News report this week, the jury awarded the boy the large sum of money because of the severity of his injuries and because the staff at New York Methodist Hospital in Park Slope were negligent in their care by ignoring the condition.

The boy, now 6, has never spoken a word in all the years he's been alive. He is confined to a wheelchair and suffers from permanent brain damage. He requires round-the-clock medical treatments because the jaundice he developed as a newborn worsened soon after he left the hospital for the first time.

The mother of the boy argued before a jury and judge that she noticed that her newborn son's eyes were yellowing rapidly soon after she gave birth to him. The mother mentioned this to hospital staff and continued to mention it for the 48 hours she stayed at the hospital following her delivery. Instead of treating the newborn for the condition, staff at New York Methodist Hospital said that the condition would go away and they turned the mother and her newborn son loose after just two days in the hospital, according to the Daily News report.

When he got home, the jaundice continued to worsen and eventually the newborn began vomiting. The parents of the boy took him to another hospital, Kings County Hospital, for treatment of this worsening condition. He received two blood transfusions after doctors there determined he was suffering from hyperbilirubinemia. At that point, the transfusions proved futile and the parents learned the worst.

The jaundice had permanently damaged their son's brain.