Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?

When you’re in a wheelchair, and have been for most of your life? Andrew Dixon, a 20 year old man with Cerebral Palsy, doesn’t have much of a choice about that. He has recently recieved millions of pounds of compensation for the mistakes made during his birth in 1987 that caused his DisAbility.

Now, I’m sure Andrew Dixon isn’t complaining about the fact that he is now a millionaire. Who would? But every time I hear about someone who has recieved compensation for being born with Cerebral Palsy, I feel like crying. Money doesn’t buy time back. It can’t buy Andrew Dixon’s parents’ dreams for their son back. All it can do is buy him a better wheelchair and more carers. Thank God his lawyers realise that “No amount of money can compensate for what Andrew has lost and what the family has been through.” 

Here are my personal thoughts on compensation. It certainly does help, but who wants money when you don’t have health? Compensation for things that are as totally irreplacable as time, energy, life, health, hopes and dreams just seems pointless to me. But Andrew Dixon’s story has only proved to me yet again that hospitals and the government really need to put more money into maternity wards. As always, I really wish that they would realise this.

It seems very simple to me. If maternity wards had more money, mothers and babies would have better care. If mothers and babies had better care, babies wouldn’t end up with severe, sometimes life-threatening, disabilities because of mistakes made by hospital staff. If babies didn’t end up with disabilities, mothers wouldn’t need to claim compensation. What would happen if mothers didn’t need to claim compensation? Surprise, surprise. Hospitals would have more money. Money that  I personally hope they would spend taking better care of pregnant women and newborn babies.   

Unfortunately, I still have no idea how much time, how many claims for compensation, or how many severe cases of Cerebral Palsy it is going to take for the authorities to realise this simple fact. Until this finally happens,  all I can do is hope that Andrew Dixon likes his new set of wheels!