A Cook County jury ordered Chicago's Amita Health Saint Hospital to pay $23.6 million to a 4-year-old who suffered brain damage during birth as the doctors failed to perform a cesarean section quickly enough to deliver her in a healthy condition.
After two days of deliberation, the jury awarded the toddler, Amirah Whiten, and her family, for loss of a normal life, pain and suffering, and future medical expenses among other things. According to the lawsuit filed in 2015, the girl's mother, Marquita Snow-Whiten, was taken to the emergency room during her pregnancy after she suffered a fall. After conducting certain tests and observation, she was discharged. On December 19, she returned to the hospital after she was kicked in her stomach by a patient she was attending to at her job as a nursing assistant. It was discovered that there was some issue with the baby's heart functioning. The lawsuit stated, after three hours of arriving in the ER, Whiten underwent a c-section. It was later discovered that her daughter, Amirah, did not receive adequate oxygen and blood for a certain period of time, which caused brain dysfunction. She had extensive mental and motoric deficits, for which a lifetime of ongoing treatment and supervision will be required. The family blamed the hospital and the doctors for their negligence. The jury found the hospital responsible for Amirah's condition. The award was placed in a fund which will help Amirah's family to cope with the cost of lifelong medical treatment and day-to-day care.
