Negligence victim to keep compensation
Bermuda Hospitals Board will not strip medical negligence victim Kamal Williams of his $60,000 compensation, even if it wins a case against him at the Island’s highest court of appeal.
The BHB’s lawyer, Caroline Harrison QC, delivered that assurance to Mr Williams yesterday at the Privy Council in London.
However, she stopped short of pledging that the board would also foot Mr Williams’s estimated $300,000 legal bill, regardless of the outcome of the appeal.
Ms Harrison said arguments over that should wait until the BHB found out if it had won.
Mr Williams spent an agonising 12 hours waiting for surgery at King Edward VII Memorial Hospital on May 30, 2011, after being taken ill with appendicitis.
He alleges that because his surgery was delayed, due to a string of problems at the hospital, his appendix ruptured, spreading toxins through his body and triggering a heart attack and breathing difficulties.
He spent a week in the intensive care unit on a life-support machine, and a further week recovering on a ward.
Mr Williams sued the hospital, and Supreme Court judge Stephen Hellman awarded him $2,000 in compensation for the pain and suffering endured during the unnecessarily long wait for surgery.
The judge declined to award damages for the life-threatening complications Mr Williams suffered during and after that surgery. But when the case went to the Court of Appeal, its judges decided that he should have been compensated for that too. Mr Justice Hellman then increased the damages by $58,000, bringing the total to $60,000.
But Ms Harrison has argued that the Court of Appeal made an error in law, and Mr Williams should only have been allowed the original $2,000, as it could not be proved that the delays caused the serious complications.
The BHB, which receives close to $150 million from the public purse annually, says the Court of Appeal ruling could set a dangerous and expensive precedent if allowed to stand.
Britain’s publicly funded National Health Service has written to the Privy Council judges urging them to heed that concern, as the case could have ramifications for it, too.
Yesterday, Ms Harrison stressed that the London appeal was about clarifying the law, not stripping Mr Williams of his compensation.
“As far as we’re concerned, he’s had his damages, which we understand he’s given to charity,” said Ms Harrison, praising Mr Williams for that kind-hearted act. “The hospital has already indicated that we do not seek to recoup those from him.”
The five judges of the Privy Council will deliver their decision later — probably not for several months. After the hearing, Mr Williams, from Southampton, said: “I am relieved to hear I will be able to keep the compensation. It’s a small token, I guess, of appreciation of what I have been through.
“But the legal costs are much higher than the damages, and they have not decided what’s going to happen with that. That does trouble me.”
Mr Williams, who works as a risk analyst, is married and has children between the ages of 4 and 9. He has been making payments to his lawyers each month with whatever money he has left after paying his rent.
He said this amounted to “tens of thousands” of dollars so far in a case that had been “financially and mentally stressful”.
“When the decision comes it will hopefully be in my favour and I will be able to get back to the mental state I was in before all this happened,” he said.
Kamal Williams, aged 39, arrived at King Edward VII Memorial Hospital at 10.15am on May 30, 2011 suffering from severe stomach pain. He was admitted to the Emergency Department at 11.15am.
Screaming in agony by 11.44am, Mr Williams was seen by doctors four times before a CT scan was ordered at 1.10pm to check for appendicitis.
Further delays ensued. A technician in the diagnostic imaging department said the department was busy and Mr Williams would have to wait in a long queue of patients needing scans.
According to an internal report later compiled by the hospital, “the urgency of this case was not communicated to the on-call radiologist through doctor to doctor communication”.
In fact, the on-call radiologist went home early from work on the day in question as he was himself feeling ill. He did not answer a page from the doctor looking after Mr Williams as a result.
The scan was finally performed at 5.12pm and was sent to an overseas radiology contractor in Australia at 6.27pm for interpretation, due to the radiologist having gone home.
The results from this “out of hours” service in Australia did not arrive back in Bermuda until 7.19pm. Mr Williams was diagnosed with acute appendicitis and taken to the Operating Room at 9.30pm.
Surgery began 45 minutes later, 12 hours after he first arrived at the hospital.
The surgeon discovered the patient had a perforated appendix and associated sepsis (toxins that had spread through his body). He was suffering heart and breathing problems.
He was admitted to the Intensive Care Unit and spent seven days on a life support machine.
Mr Williams believes he would not have become so seriously ill if he had been treated more promptly. He took the Bermuda Hospitals Board to the Supreme Court in December 2012, seeking $100,000 compensation for his ordeal.
In January 2013, his claim was only partially upheld, and he was awarded damages of $2,000. The court ordered the BHB to meet his legal costs totalling nearly $70,000.
In November 2013, Mr Williams’ lawyers took the matter to the Court of Appeal, which said the Supreme Court got the law wrong, and should reassess the damages.
It said Mr Williams suffered “inordinate delays” totaling four to five hours due to a “defective system” at KEMH and was entitled to damages for the health complications suffered.
In April 2014, Mr Williams told The Royal Gazette he would share any compensation he got with a teenage brain cancer survivor, N’Keema Virgil. He had been touched by her story, which was reported in this newspaper.
In May last year, the Supreme Court increased his compensation by $58,000 to a total of $60,000 plus $14,400 for loss of earnings.
This week, the BHB challenged that ruling at the Privy Council in London. The outcome will be announced in the New Year, along with a decision on who must pay Mr Williams’ estimated $300,000 legal bill.
