MedLife and obstetrician ordered to pay €1.5 million
The Bucharest Court of Appeal has ordered private clinic MedLife and obstetrician Natalia Caisîn to pay €1.5 millionto the family of a child left severely disabled after a medical error.
It is the largest compensation award in Romanian history in a malpractice case. At first instance, the family of the girl, now eight and a half years old, was awarded €500,000. The child suffered an extremely severe form of cerebral palsy because of the actions or rather the inaction of medical staff.
The family challenged the ruling, and after the appeal the compensation was tripled. What makes the case even more striking is that, despite the enormous damages, Dr Caisîn not only avoided criminal liability, but continues to see patients at another private clinic.
A child left at infant level
The court established that the girl’s neuropsychomotor development stopped at the level of an infant. She cannot move independently. She cannot chew or swallow. She has severe difficulty expressing emotions through gestures or words. She is fed through a nasogastric tube. In other words, this is not simply a “medical complication”. It is a destroyed childhood and a life sentence for the family.
What happened during the birth
The incident took place on January 3, 2018. Dr Caisîn, who was supervising the birth, recorded a critical drop in the foetus’s heart rate below 90 beats per minute. She decided that an emergency caesarean section was needed.
But according to the case file, during the next 15 minutes, Caisîn discussed another case with the head of the department.
A midwife who testified against the obstetrician told the court that she went to the doctor three times, asking her to come and help and urging her to hurry. According to the witness, the doctor and the department head were sitting “in armchairs” as if nothing urgent was happening. The operation effectively began only 39 minutes later. The baby was delivered even later after 48 minutes.
Delay caused irreversible brain damage
The expert assessment found that the delay led to umbilical cord asphyxiation and irreversible hypoxic brain injuries in the newborn. The judge noted that if the anaesthesiologist had been notified in time and the operating room had been prepared promptly, the foetus could have been delivered 18 minutes earlier. That, the court found, would likely have prevented the catastrophic consequences.
Compensation, but no real accountability
The ruling gives the family a record financial award. But it does not answer the most painful question. How can a doctor whose negligence contributed to such devastating harm avoid criminal punishment and continue practising medicine? Romania now has a landmark compensation case. But for the girl’s family, no amount of money can return the life that was taken from their child.
