Brain-damaged mum wins compo fight

A young mum left severely brain-damaged after botched hospital treatment during childbirth has won compensation after a seven-year battle.

Auckland woman Joanna Louise Crampton, 37, was admitted to North Shore Hospital two days before Christmas in 2005 to give birth to her third son.

She suffered a "catastrophic" amniotic fluid embolism - a rare emergency in which debris enters the body during childbirth. The hospital was severely criticised for its "monumental failure" in the case.

Crampton's family has been battling the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC), which declined a 2006 claim because it said the injuries were as a result of an "unpredictable complication", rather than a lack of treatment.

But after seven years, that fight is finally over, with an Auckland District Court judge overturning ACC's decision.

It is not clear what Crampton's compensation will be. Her former husband, Damian Crampton, said lawyers are still discussing the figure.

He told the Sunday Star-Times that his former wife now lives at a West Auckland residential rehabilitation centre for people with traumatic brain injuries. "We still go visit her," he said.

Damian Crampton has since remarried and raises their three children with his new wife.

In a decision released last month, Judge Roderick Joyce said hospital staff's "tardiness and insufficiency" in responding to Crampton's emergency resulted in the irreversible injury which was "most probably substantially, if not entirely, avoidable". He criticised the hospital for its "monumental failure".

Andrew Brant, Waitemata DHB's chief medical officer, said Crampton's case was thoroughly investigated and an external review by the Health and Disability Commissioner at the time, Ron Paterson, found no breach of code.

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Brain-damaged mum wins compo fight