Pretoria - Health authorities in Gauteng will have to pay the mother of a toddler damages after the child suffered burn wounds.
The child was locked up by a nurse in a hospital room after her mother left her side for a few hours to go home.
The child, identified only as L, suffered wounds from a wall heater after she, in a traumatised state, ran to the window to try to look for her mother.
The mother turned to the Gauteng High Court, Johannesburg, where she claimed damages from the MEC for Health in Gauteng. It is not at this stage known how much she claimed, as this will be dealt with in the second leg of the hearing.
The mother argued that the negligence of the nursing and medical staff at the Tambo Memorial Hospital in Boksburg led to her child being injured.
The child was only three years old when she was taken to hospital in 2017 after she suffered seizures.
The mother said when she returned to the hospital a few hours later, after she went home, she found her child dressed in bandages to treat a burn to her left leg.
She was told by the staff that her child was burnt by a wall-mounted heater which she came into contact with while trying to leave the ward.
The mother saw that the child’s leg was severely burnt.
It was subsequently discovered that the child was locked in and left alone. She started crying and apparently tried to jump out of the window because the doors were locked.
L was treated by a plastic surgeon and the wounds were attended to during her two-week stay in the hospital.
It was argued on behalf of the MEC that the nursing staff were not negligent, as the child suffered the wounds when she tried to climb out of the window.
Given that it was not foreseeable that the child would try to climb out of the window, such harm could not be foreseeable, the court was told.
When asked why the MEC was still persisting with this argument, given that it was common cause that the ward had been locked, that the child had no other way of leaving, and that the child was left unsupervised with the wall heater on, the advocate said he could not take the matter further
A paediatrician who submitted a report to the court concluded that L’s wound was as a result of negligent medical staff. She recommended that the family be referred to a psychologist to manage the post-traumatic disorder that occurred due to the incident.
In addition, she recommended that L be referred to an occupational therapist and physiotherapist to maximise the gross motor skills of her lower limbs.
Acting Judge Y Carrim said it was common knowledge that young children, when separated from their mothers, were likely to become distressed. More so a child in the position of L who had suffered the recent trauma of a seizure and who was placed in unfamiliar surroundings and whose mother had just left her alone.
“Children of such tender years in such circumstances are likely to start crying and looking for their mothers. In my view, the medical staff – who are purportedly trained to take care of patients generally and in the case of patients as young as L specifically – should reasonably have foreseen that the toddler would at some point start looking or crying for her mother.”
The judge said in such circumstances it would be expected of a reasonable health service provider or nurse to ensure the child was supervised and, where needed, soothed.
“I disagree with the defendant’s submission that the harm caused to L was because she tried to climb out of the window. The child could have just as easily fallen against the wall heater and sustained burn wounds. Left unsupervised, she could have hurt herself in any other way,” the judge said.
He said the staff failed to take steps to ensure the child’s safety and he ruled that the health authorities were responsible for the damages suffered by the mother, on behalf of the child.
Pretoria News