Long labor leads to claim

Nurses, Burdett Care Center face
suit alleging injuries to newborn

Lawsuit alleges baby was "near death"
after mother was in labor for 17 hours 
 

By David Baker
Posted Thursday Jan. 1, 2015
413 words

The parents of a baby who allegedly received a permanent brain injury after four nurses allegedly failed to see that he was in distress during a long labor have filed a lawsuit against the nurses and the Burdett Care Center, a maternity facility located within Samaritan Hospital in Troy, N.Y.

According to legal papers, Lisette Maldonado of Troy went into labor on August 4, 2012 and was admitted to the care center at just after 4 a.m.

The suit says that the four nurses – Kathleen Breault, Amy Vincent, Jeanmarie Rodino and Kim-Lorraine Reed Bouchard – “…failed to address signs of fetal distress and permitted labor to continue, administered medications to induce labor and failed to seek medical assistance or take steps to have the baby delivered by cesarean section despite the need to do so.”

After Maldonado had been in labor for 17 hours, the baby was delivered by cesarean section. By then according to the complaint, he had received permanent injuries.

“The prolonged and extreme fetal distress suffered by the baby prior to the time of his birth placed him at risk of significant injury and harm, requiring that emergent steps be taken including delivery by cesarean section to alleviate,” the complaint says. “…[H]e was by then and there in extreme distress, had aspirated meconium, [the baby’s own accumulated waste], suffered respiratory failure, hypoxemia, was suffering acute excruciating mental and physical agony and pain and was near death.”

As a result, the suit says, the baby “…suffered trauma to his body systems, suffered mental and physical  pain suffered anguish anxiety and brain damage.”

The suit also names Capital Region Midwifery, by which Breault, a certified nurse midwife, was employed. Capital Region Midwifery was founded in 2012 with offices in Albany, Latham and Troy and has admitting privileges at the Burdett Care Center and at Ellis Healthcare in Schenectady, according to its web page. 

The suit seek an unspecified amount in damages for what it says will be the considerable resources needed to treat the child’s condition, and for his pain, as well as compensation for both parents’ anguish.

The suit was filed in October 2013  by the Albany law firm DeGraff, Foy & Kunz.

The defendants are represented by Carter, Conboy, Case, Blackmore Maloney & Laird; and O’Connor, O’Connor, Bresee & First. In early 2014 the defendant Kathleen Breault, an employee of Capital Region Midwifery, signed a consent to change attorneys from Carter, Conboy to Napierski, Vandenburgh, Napierski & O’Connor.

A search of the area’s newspaper archives produced no indication that details of the case have been published.
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