Placing Value on Something Truly Priceless

I often wonder why hospitals bother giving millions of pounds of compensation to families after children are born with Cerebral Palsy. Even if the hospital concerned is directly to blame for the child’s DisAbility, as it always is when compensation is fought for and awarded,  giving compensation seems pointless to me.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that hospitals should get away with leaving people DisAbled for life. Nor am I saying that people with CP and their families don’t deserve the compensation. They do. Cerebral Palsy is a lifelong DisAbility. When caused by hospital negligence, it is usually very severe.

The latest case of hospital negligence where compensation was awarded was that of Owen Johnson. I have also featured the cases of Andrew Dixon, Daniel Kay and Callum Robertson  on my blog. If the idea of compensation being awarded in the first place didn’t upset me so much, I would definitely stop to wonder why there isn’t a female on that list!

Getting back to the point of this post. Compensation definitely helps. No one is denying that. And every time a case comes to public attention, the payout is higher.  Ask anyone affected by Cerebral Palsy, though, and I am sure that they will all tell you that they would much rather have full physical health, or an able-bodied family member, than any amount of money. If you watch the video about Owen Johnson, you will see that his mother, for one, definitely agrees with me on that.

In my opinion, what the government, and hospitals, really need to do is improve maternity wards, and the care that they provide to pregnant women during labour, and to newborn babies after birth. I strongly believe that  if the government gave more money to hospitals to be spent on maternity wards, pregnant women and newborn babies would have better facilities, and would therefore recieve better care. If better care was available to mothers and babies, babies wouldn’t end up with severe, sometimes life-threatening, cases of Cerebral Palsy due to mistakes made by hospital staff. If hospitals didn’t cause Cerebral Palsy, families wouldn’t need to claim compensation. If compensation wasn’t claimed, the government would have more money. We can always hope that the millions they would save just might be spent on improving facilities for pregnant women and newborn babies!

Unfortunately, even after seeing five cases of hospital negligence leaving people with severe cases of Cerebral Palsy, I still have no idea how much time, or how many compensation claims or cases of Cerebral Palsy, it is going to take before the government finally realises this simple truth. What I can tell you for sure is that, no matter how many millions of pounds are awarded in compensation to people with Cerebral Palsy, full physical health and parents’ dreams for their children are priceless. Since Cerebral Palsy can’t usually be cured,  no matter what, no amount of compensation will ever be enough for anyone concerned. So, lets stop placing values on things that are priceless, and instead, let’s start improving our maternity wards. That way, our government will save millions, and they might just reduce the number of DisAbled people in the world in the process.

Personally, I think that would be wonderful. As always, I welcome your comments.