The Claimant pursued a claim for damages against a Hospital Trust for their failure to treat primary open-angle glaucoma as a result of which the Claimant had gone blind.
The Claimant attended an ophthalmic clinic and was diagnosed with primary open angle glaucoma and was advised to attend an Eye Hospital for treatment. Although an urgent referral was made to the eye unit, the Claimant did not receive an appointment to be seen at the eye unit for 3¬Ω months.
Although the Claimant was prescribed eye-drops for her condition and was told that she would require frequent appointments, the eye unit failed to ensure that the Claimant was seen and over a period of 10 months the Claimant received no appointments, in spite of the fact that she telephoned the eye unit on several occasions complaining that her eyesight was deteriorating and that her eye-drops were painful.
By the time the Claimant received an eye clinic appointment her intraocular pressures were extremely high. She was told that she would be reviewed in a month’s time. The Claimant was reviewed on four occasions over two months, when no action was taken to correct her intraocular pressures and no surgery was undertaken by the eye clinic.
By the time the Claimant attended the glaucoma clinic in February 2018 the Claimant was blind.
Although the Claimant subsequently underwent laser treatment, the clinicians were unable to improve her eyesight and the Claimant was registered as severely sight-impaired (blind).
After a Letter of Claim was forwarded to the relevant Trust there was a full admission of breach of duty and the Trust also admitted that had the Claimant undergone timely surgery, she would have been sight impaired, but she would not have been severely sight-restricted, i.e. blind.
The Trust granted interim payments to the Claimant during the course of the litigation and the claim was settled within 15 months of instructions being received. The Claimant’s claim was for inter alia pain, injury and suffering, care costs, loss of earnings, accommodation costs, childcare and rehabilitation.
The claim settled for a seven figure sum.
