“Zakir”, now 8 

A community midwife who attended to Zakir at home when he was just three days old failed to provide any care for his newborn jaundice, despite this and other concerns being raised by his mother. As a result, Zakir sustained a brain injury called kernicterus and now has complex health and care needs. Nothing could ever make up for this, but after Zakir’s case was taken on by JMW’s Eddie Jones, Zakir was awarded £9.7 million in compensation over his lifetime so that he could have access to the specialist care and support he requires.

Jaundice failures

Zakir was his mother and father’s first child, and although his birth weight was considered a little low, he was otherwise born in a good condition. Zakir’s mother wanted to breastfeed, but really struggled with this while in hospital. Midwives showed her how to provide additional expressed breast milk to Zakir with a syringe. Zakir and his mother were kept in hospital for two nights, before being discharged in the afternoon of the second day. For the rest of the day Zakir’s mother continued to struggle with breast feeding and would use the syringe at each unsuccessful attempt to try to provide additional milk to her baby. 

Later that evening, Zakir’s parents noticed that his skin appeared yellow, which they believed to be jaundice. During the night he was very unsettled.

It was close to lunchtime the following day when Zakir and his mother received their first midwife visit at home. Zakir’s mother explained to the midwife how difficult it was to breastfeed and her concerns that Zakir was not feeding enough. She also pointed out that he looked jaundiced, which the midwife agreed with after taking off his sleepsuit to check his body. However, the midwife did not test the level of bilirubin, the substance that causes the yellowing of the skin and can cause brain damage, in Zakir’s blood, nor did she refer him to hospital for assessment by a doctor, as she ought to have done. The only advice the midwife provided was to place Zakir in sunlight, which was incorrect and would have no impact whatsoever on the amount of bilirubin in his system. 

Zakir’s mother spent that afternoon in her conservatory, attempting to breastfeed in maximum sunlight, as the midwife had told her to. Over the next few hours, Zakir became more and more lethargic and reluctant to feed. His mother had been reassured by the midwife that there was nothing to be concerned about, however by 8.30pm she felt something was not right with her son and she and his father took him to hospital. At hospital Zakir’s bilirubin levels were tested as it was immediately noticed that he was severely jaundiced. Zakir’s bilirubin level was found to be extremely high, and he required urgent treatment with a phototherapy light, and later with a blood transfusion. Sadly, due to Zakir not receiving treatment for his jaundice for many hours, he displayed signs of neurological damage, including arching his back and displaying jittery arm and leg movements. An MRI scan that was carried out later confirmed that there was permanent damage to Zakir’s brain. 

Zakir’s parents felt devastated about what had happened to their child due to his jaundice and felt if action had been taken sooner, Zakir’s treatment may have prevented such a severe injury. 

JMW’s investigation

Zakir’s parents found JMW online while researching similar incidents that had happened to other children. After reading about JMW’s experience of supporting the families of children with kernicterus in finding answers and securing compensation, they got in touch. Zakir’s case was taken on by Eddie Jones, a leading medical negligence solicitor and head of the medical negligence team at JMW. Eddie took a full history of Zakir’s birth, what happened once he was at home under the care of the community midwives, and his treatment in hospital following his emergency admission. Eddie also analysed all the relevant medical records so that he could form an opinion on whether anything could and should have been done differently. 

Eddie’s opinion was that it was wrong of the community midwife not to have taken any action on Zakir’s jaundice when she visited him at home, and that if she had, things may have been very different. However, in order to bring a medical negligence claim for Zakir, Eddie needed to consult independent medical experts and ask them to prepare reports containing their opinion which could be used as evidence. The experts agreed that if Zakir had been tested by the midwife and referred to hospital for treatment at that time, then his kernicterus brain injury would have been avoided. 

These supportive expert reports enabled Eddie to build a strong case against the hospital trust and led to it making a full admission of negligence, paving the way for significant compensation to be negotiated to cover Zakir’s lifelong care needs. 

Kernicterus compensation

Using the best independent experts once again, Eddie was able to successfully argue that Zakir required new living accommodation on one level that could also be adapted, so that he could be safely and properly cared for at home. 

Eddie also factored in therapies that would improve Zakir’s quality of life and independence, including weekly physiotherapy, into the claim.

Financial security for Zakir was another important element to the case because he will be unable to work for a living. The compensation needed to ensure that he was provided for for the rest of his life, although tragically Zakir is not expected to have a long life expectancy.

Eddie was able to ensure everything that Zakir required to have the best possible quality of life was put in place., amounting to a settlement if £9.7 million across his lifetime.