Cork woman catastrophically injured at birth wins important step in High Court case

It is alleged Jane Harte would have been spared all or most of her injuries had she received a simple antibiotic in the first 17 hours of her life.

Jane Harte and mother Olivia Harte. Picture: Larry Cummins

Screams of joy erupted as a Cork woman who suffered catastrophic injuries at birth won an important step in her case against a retired consultant and a now-closed private maternity hospital.

Jane Harte, now 26, was catastrophically injured at birth after a deadly infection was allegedly not treated at City General Hospital in Cork in 1995.

Her mother, Olivia Harte, has been fighting for damages for her child since May 2020 with barrister Doireann O’Mahony and a legal team.

The defendant, retired consultant gynaecologist Dr Pillany Pillay, now 88, who ran City General Hospital, had applied to have the case dismissed.

He claimed that the delay in taking the case until Ms Harte was in her 20s, would put him at risk of an unfair trial.

Mr Pillay had also claimed that the absence of medical records – shredded after he closed his hospital – compromised his ability to defend the case.

However, some medical records from the time had survived and Justice Marguerite Bolger said that she did not consider the records so non-existent as to put the defendant at real and substantial risk of an unfair trial.

She refused Mr Pillay’s application to have the case dismissed on Wednesday via an electronic judgement.

Jane Harte and Olivia Harte with barrister Doireann O'Mahony. Picture: Larry Cummins

She said that because the plaintiff was operating under a disability, she did not have to prove that the delay in bringing her proceedings to court was inordinate or excessive.

Costs have yet to be awarded, however, Justice Bolger wrote in her judgement that her indicative view on costs is that as the defendant has not succeeded in his application, the plaintiff is entitled to her costs.

The case is to be listed for mention on July 5 to consider any submissions relating to costs or final orders.

Ms O’Mahony said that she hopes the case can move forward quickly for mediation.

Now 26, Ms Harte is profoundly disabled with spastic quadriplegic cerebral palsy. She requires 24-hour care and supervision and lives at the Cope foundation facility in Montenotte in Cork City.

It is alleged that Ms Harte was born healthy but she contracted an infection and her condition deteriorated catastrophically over the first 17 hours of her life at the now-closed City General Hospital on October 8, 1995.

Three independent experts for the plaintiff found that Ms Harte was born “in good condition” at 6am that morning, according to an affidavit submitted by her legal team.

But her mother, who was 16 at the time, said she remembers her breathing loudly and moaning from about 2pm, which worsened as time passed, and alleges she could not initially get Mr Pillay to attend to her baby.

At 11pm that night, breathing rapidly, turning purple and close to death, the baby was rushed to the neonatal intensive care unit in the Erinville hospital in her grandmother’s car accompanied by a midwife from City General Hospital.

Her skin had turned a blueish purple (cyanosis), she was mottled, tachypnoiac (abnormally high respiratory rate resulting in abnormally rapid breathing). She was also grunting and was very poorly perfused on her arrival at the Erinville, staff noted at the time.

Medical records from the Erinville at the time note that the midwife who accompanied Ms Harte told the hospital that the baby had been “grunting” throughout the day while at City General Hospital.

Grunting is one of a number of clinical signs of neonatal streptococcus sepsis, noted Simon Mitchell, consultant neonatologist, an independent medical expert contacted by the plaintiff.

Mr Pillay closed his private maternity hospital in 2000 and destroyed his medical records in 2015 before the plaintiff took her case.

And because of these missing records and missing witnesses, including the midwife who accompanied baby Jane to the Erinville, the defence said that it was not possible to have a fair trial.

Clarification June 16: The original version of this article stated the family of Jane Harte had "won a High Court case" for damages regarding her medical treatment after her birth. We are happy to clarify the case has not finalised, but the judge has dismissed an application by the defendant Dr Pillany Pillay to dismiss the case on the grounds of delay. The case can now go forward for hearing by the High Court or to be mediated by both sides. The article has been edited to make this clear.