Claim settled for infertility caused by mismanagement of ectopic pregnancy

Our clinical negligence specialists represented a young woman who had a history of pelvic inflammatory disease, particularly in her left fallopian tube, and who attended hospital with a suspected ectopic pregnancy. She underwent emergency surgery, a laparoscopy, at which the surgeon thought he could see a left-sided ectopic pregnancy and performed a salpingectomy to remove our client’s left fallopian tube.

She collapsed at home a few days later when her right fallopian tube burst (an extremely painful and traumatic tubal abruption) due to the ectopic pregnancy within it. Subsequent review of her radiology revealed a cyst hanging from the left fallopian tube but not an ectopic pregnancy within it. A claim was brought on the basis that in rushing ahead to remove the left tube the surgeon essentially performed a sterilising procedure by incorrectly believing it to contain an ectopic pregnancy when it did not.  

If the surgeon had checked our client’s medical history, he would have known that her left fallopian tube was the only functioning one of the pair. If our client’s condition been investigated appropriately, her right sided ectopic pregnancy could have been dealt with conservatively with methotrexate medication to dissolve the ectopic pregnancy and avoiding the life-threatening tubal abruption suffered by our client.

Our client had been rendered infertile as a woman in her early 20s by the loss of both her fallopian tubes. She was unable to add to her family as she would otherwise have wished. Her condition caused her to suffer moderately severe depression, loss of sleep and loss of libido. She also suffered the breakdown of her relationship with her partner. Future conception would require IVF therapy that our client would have to pay for privately. She would then endure the physical and emotional effects of IVF treatment.

We obtained advice to understand what our client’s IVF treatment would comprise. The expert advice was that she would need to undergo ovarian stimulation with daily injections of gonadotrophins followed by transvaginal ultrasound guided egg collection, fertilisation in vitro and transfer of one or two embryos to the uterus. Our client wished to have a further two children to complete her family and therefore was more likely to need at least four cycles of IVF with frozen embryo replacement.

It was acknowledged that IVF is a highly stressful procedure for any women to undergo and given our client’s depression and increased desire for the treatment to succeed, it was more likely that she would require psychiatric support and counselling during her fertility treatment. Our client would need to take  time off work to attend medical appointments while she underwent IVF and was likely to incur a loss of earnings as a result. She would also likely need care and assistance.

It was necessary to litigate the claim as the defendant denied liability but we were able to value the claim and settle it through negotiation. 

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