Michelle Loubon

A mere week be­fore Fa­ther's Day, Va­len­cia res­i­dent Bri­an Nurse is bask­ing in a med­ical vic­to­ry on be­half of his beloved twin sons Jared and Jer­rend. Nurse cre­at­ed his­to­ry when he suc­cess­ful­ly chal­lenged the State over hos­pi­tal neg­li­gence-and won a land­mark $6.4 mil­lion. To date, he has been paid $1.6 mil­lion. The red let­ter day was De­cem­ber 13, 2010. In a nut­shell, Nurse's wife Gillian Nichols gave birth to a healthy ba­by Jared and Jer­rend-who is strick­en with cere­bral pal­sy.

Nurse cast the blame sole­ly at the feet of the ER­HA (East­ern Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty) and the med­ical team at the San­gre Grande Hos­pi­tal. They were re­spon­si­ble for the botched de­liv­ery on Sep­tem­ber 26, 2002. While dot­ing on Jer­rend, whom he af­fec­tion­ate­ly calls JJ, Nurse said: "It's an his­tor­i­cal break­through. This mat­ter was in court. It fi­nal­ly came to a de­ci­sion to award $6.4 mil­lion. They are say­ing they are go­ing to ap­peal the case be­cause it is too much. "It's a land­mark. In all the his­to­ry, they have nev­er paid $6.4 mil­lion for neg­li­gence in the hos­pi­tal."

An ar­du­ous jour­ney

Al­though there's talk about im­mi­nent moves to ap­peal the judg­ment due to the ex­or­bi­tant sum, it does not sway Nurse in the least. He is not the least fazed by At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan's plan to probe it since he has the pro­tec­tion of his "Guardian an­gel", at­tor­ney Ly­dia Men­don­ca. Nurse added: "The judge de­cid­ed they can't ap­peal it. They are prob­ing in the sense. When they tried to ap­peal it, it was thrown out. They want­ed to ap­peal it for it to go over. He could prove they held up every­thing. They had signed up every­thing to say we would get the mon­ey in 28 days. "My lawyer wrote them and let them know it was con­sent­ed and they can't ap­peal it. They tell us they would give us it (the sum)." Al­though he may have fi­nal­ly got­ten fi­nan­cial com­pen­sa­tion, Nurse not­ed it was an ar­du­ous jour­ney. Us­ing the anal­o­gy of a road, he said: "It was re­al steep. I had to climb up and down." Asked what ad­vice he would give to cit­i­zens sad­dled with a sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tion, Nurse said: "You must have the courage of your con­vic­tions. Stand up and fight. Don't just bend over to those in au­thor­i­ty. Don't give up. No mat­ter what ob­sta­cle. Just hold on." Pat­ting him­self on the back, Nurse said the land­mark set­tle­ment was fait ac­com­pli. "Hope had its place eight years ago. Be­hind that dark cloud is the sil­ver lin­ing."

Joy turns to sor­row

As though it were yes­ter­day, Nurse re­lat­ed the train of events which led to his vic­to­ry against the State. Trans­port­ing him­self to the San­gre Grande Hos­pi­tal, Nurse re­mem­bered the fate­ful day with a ten­der mix of joy and sad­ness. At times, he paused; re­vis­it­ing the ex­pe­ri­ence etched in his men­tal archives. Like con­tem­po­rary writer David Lawrence, he of­ten ra­tio­nalis­es "ours is a trag­ic age." No doubt, Nurse is proud and fond of his boys. But there is the con­stant re­minder Jared, a stu­dent at Sa­cred Heart Boys' RC, is en­joy­ing per­fect health. On the flip side, Jer­rend can nei­ther walk or talk. Based on his de­bil­i­tat­ing con­di­tion, they feel JJ's life ex­pectan­cy is 20 years.

Se­quence of events

Nurse re­count­ed the se­ries of events dur­ing that trag­ic time. Sep­tem­ber 26, 2002-Gillian be­gan ex­pe­ri­enc­ing labour pains. He rushed her to the San­gre Grande Hos­pi­tal. They put her on a wheel­chair and took her in­side the women's ward. He kept pac­ing; heart pal­pi­tat­ing; ex­cit­ed at the prospect of be­ing a first-time fa­ther. "I was lis­ten­ing to hear my chil­dren born so I could re­joice. "I silent­ly prayed they would be born on the same day. I did not want them to cel­e­brate their birth­days one day apart," he said. 8 pm-Nurse heard a lit­tle cry­ing. It was Jared. "Af­ter, I didn't hear an­oth­er cry. Maybe about half an hour to an hour I heard some­body bawl out 'one for Cae­sare­an.'" Nurse got ner­vous. He start to walk hop­ing every­thing would be all right. "I don't know if JJ was 'stuck.'" The doc­tor emerged. He said: "You have a beau­ti­ful boy and the oth­er one breached. We have no­body here to per­form the C-sec­tion." It was the best of times. It was the worse of times. Fear coiled in him. "Every­thing you hear about ho­n­ourable min­is­ter went out the door. I felt cheap," Nurse said.He hoped the doc­tor would do his best to de­liv­er the sec­ond child.

Child di­ag­nosed with cere­bral pal­sy

Ten min­utes lapsed-Nurse paid Nichols a brief vis­it. He nev­er for­got the piti­ful sight of moth­er and child.

She was in ex­cru­ci­at­ing pain. He felt pow­er­less. "I saw how her bel­ly was big and round. Every­thing went down. He will nev­er for­get the im­age of the un­born JJ. His in­stinct told him all was not well. "JJ just print out on her stom­ach. The whole skin like it suck in­to him. I watched that and I said this is not right. "They just "stuff" her (blocked the vagi­nal pas­sage) and left her there." Nurse placed his hand on her stom­ach and said a silent prayer. A tear rolled down his cheek. Dur­ing that time, a push­ing trol­ley popped by. He went out­side. Rain fell and breeze blew. She was placed on the trol­ley and pushed in­to emer­gency (about 100 yards away). 11:53 pm-A nurse car­ry­ing a green blan­ket ap­proached.

Nurse un­cov­ered it. JJ looked dazed out. He was just there. Again, Nurse had the nig­gling feel­ing some­thing was amiss. "I just watched and I sat there think­ing every­thing was not right. No­body came and said any­thing about the pro­ce­dure. That was it for the night." Sep­tem­ber 27-Every­one was trans­ferred to Mt Hope Med­ical Hos­pi­tal. JJ spent three weeks, Jared one. No breast­feed­ing. Nurse sought the help of his friends and fam­i­ly to get four pints of blood for her. She had slipped in and out of con­scious­ness. Oc­to­ber-Every­body was dis­charged from hos­pi­tal. JJ was weak. They kept treat­ing him at Mt Hope Clin­ic. "Some­thing with his brain. "They told us he had cere­bral pal­sy."

Nurse dis­turbed at the un­for­tu­nate turn of events

"Days and months every­thing was good...like Jared. They said lack of oxy­gen could cause a child to get brain dam­age." Oc­to­ber 2003-Nurse vowed not to rest un­til he had got­ten jus­tice. Like a rag­ing bull, he said: "That im­age of JJ print­ed out on Nicole's stom­ach stayed with me. I de­cid­ed I would not take it light­ly."

Lawyers come and go

Oc­to­ber 2003-Ig­no­rant to le­gal machi­na­tions, Nurse sought help from Le­gal Aid. Nurse said: "I had no idea where to start. I had nev­er done any­thing in­volv­ing the law like that. A kind la­dy told me to go to Hugh Wood­ing Law School. There are young lawyers who are hun­gry for a case. I met Alan Chad. I gave him all the in­for­ma­tion. He nev­er called." Nurse re­alised he had to change his modus operan­di. He be­gan pound­ing the pave­ment to get doors opened. He was protest­ing with his chil­dren. Peo­ple stared. "I went on 102FM and told my sto­ry. Sir Charles took me to see Elvis O'Con­nor. He told me he want­ed $6,000 to start the case. He said, 'You could get about $11 mil­lion.'" When they be­gan talks at San­gre Grande, O'Con­nor was present. He was told in sit­u­a­tions like that they give $250,000 or $500,000. He said: "'Boy, all you bet­ter ac­cept that.'" When Nurse got home that evening, he wrote O'Con­nor a let­ter and told him his ser­vices were no longer need­ed. "I felt like I was go­ing mad." Nurse con­tin­ued can­vass­ing sup­port for his cause. "I would take their pram and put in my car. I would push them." He got an au­di­ence with Glad­i­a­tor-who placed a call to for­mer min­is­ter of Health, John Ra­hael. "He stepped out of the meet­ing and nev­er watched me."

He took his protest out­side Stollmey­er's Cas­tle. He said: "Her­bert Atwell (the for­mer ad­vis­er to for­mer prime min­is­ter, Patrick Man­ning) told me to write a let­ter and he would take it to Ra­hael. I did the let­ter. He took it to Ra­hael. I nev­er got a chance to see Ra­hael. He wrote back and said the mat­ter would be in­ves­ti­gat­ed. I kept go­ing up­stairs to see Ra­hael but I nev­er saw him." As the clock ticked, Nurse strength­ened his re­solve to cham­pi­on JJ's cause. An­oth­er for­mer min­is­ter of Health, Jer­ry Narace stayed in his car when he spot­ted him. He en­list­ed the ser­vices of at­tor­ney cum At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan. A bea­con of light shone through. Nurse said: "Ram­lo­gan said he would give the ER­HA 28 days to re­spond. At first he was so pas­sion­ate...he was full of con­vic­tion. He said down in his of­fice, 'yes, this chupid­ness has to stop.' To get prop­er com­pen­sa­tion, I was so joy­ful. I know Ram­lo­gan win­ning case."

A sharp bend sur­faced. "My whole spir­it flagged. He (Ram­lo­gan) said, 'Doc­tors don't go against doc­tors.'" Next he ap­proached sen­a­tor/at­tor­ney Fitzger­ald Hinds. Hinds didn't ap­pear at times. Nurse said: "The judge bawl at us-my wife was cry­ing-we will get this mat­ter out." One day, Hinds sur­faced. "I fired him in front of the mag­is­trate."

Ly­dia Men­don­ca to the res­cue

As though the heav­ens heard his cries for jus­tice, he got in con­tact with Men­don­ca. She was the panacea to his prayers and protests. Re­ly­ing on the Bib­li­cal scrip­ture, he said: "Don't be for­get­ful to en­ter­tain strangers be­cause where­by some have en­ter­tained an­gels." Nurse said: "I want­ed a woman to do this case. "That la­dy was a bless­ing. She was like a Guardian an­gel. She saw trou­ble and trou­ble it and went right back. She just han­dle it right. She lift­ed my spir­it. Fam­i­ly at peace now. She did her job and went back to heav­en." De­cem­ber 13, 2010-Nurse learned he would get the mon­ey. They had put off the case about 28 times. I am not a su­per­sti­tious per­son. I said: "Is just so case does end." He main­tains it was not about the monies. "I am a be­liev­er in God. Jared can nev­er play foot­ball or crick­et with his broth­er. I have to fight for jus­tice and truth."

Next week: Read how dad chucks job to nurse cere­bral pal­sy child full-time.