Mother of four who had stroke wins right to compensation

Posted 13/04/2009

A court has ruled that a severe brain-stem stroke suffered in 2004 by Samantha Cole from Marks Tey near Colchester could have been prevented if her GP had referred her promptly to hospital for further tests. The mother of four is being represented by clinical negligence specialist Trefine Maynard from Ashtons Legal.

In May 2004 Ms Cole suffered a range of symptoms including severe headaches, dizziness and sickness and instability over a period of 3 weeks. She visited both Accident and Emergency and her local surgery during that period without obtaining any relief of her symptoms. Finally she asked her GP to make a home visit as by this time she was too unwell to go to the surgery. She alleged that he GP has since admitted that he should at this point have referred her to hospital at this time but failed to do so. Her case was that had she been referred to hospital her condition, a ‘collapse’ of an artery in her neck, would have been diagnosed and she would have been given treatment which would have averted the stroke that she in fact suffered four days later.

Ms Cole’s GP made a full and open admission of his failure to refer to hospital but the case was defended on the basis that even had she been sent to hospital, she would still have suffered the stroke.

As a result of the stoke suffered by Ms Cole she spent a prolonged period in hospital, is still unable to walk unaided almost 5 years after event, and has no feeling in her left foot which has resulted in problems with her balance and symptoms of vertigo. She also has a number of other problems caused by general weakness on the left hand side of her body.

Trefine Maynard explains: “We believed that if Ms Cole had been referred to hospital and given appropriate tests four days before her stroke occurred, the problem would have been identified and prevented by high dose aspirin treatment. At the end of a two day trial in the High Court in London the Court agreed that this was likely to have been the case. This means that we will be able to obtain some financial compensation for Ms Cole although the sums involved will not be known for some time. This will help her to deal with the difficulties of raising her four children while unable to be fully independent or to earn a normal wage”.