High Court approves interim €4m payment for Ben Corry over care provided at Portiuncula Hospital in Galway in 2005The mother of a teenager, who has settled an interim High Court action over the circumstances of his birth at Portiuncula Hospital in Galway, has said Ireland 'is no country to have a disabled child' in.
It was alleged that Ms Corry’s labour was incompetently managed and that there was a failure to intervene and proceed to Caesarean section. As a result of the defendant’s alleged negligence, it was claimed that Ben was exposed to an unnecessarily prolonged period of birth asphyxia. He subsequently developed hypoxic-ischaemic encephalopathy, a type of brain damage, it was claimed. The claims were denied.
Ben cannot speak, she said. “I have waited for 17 years for him to say Mum and Dad but he can’t say it.” Ben, she said, has had to live “like a prisoner in his own house” as they have to keep the windows and door locked.