A FAMILY has welcomed a compensation payout worth £12m to cover care for their son who was left badly disabled by a doctor’s blunder.
Kidlington boy Yiqun Zhang, pictured, was left with cerebral palsy after his skull was fractured and his brain injured during his birth at a London hospital.
A High Court judge approved the payout on Tuesday after a hearing last year ruled the doctor was responsible for the injury.
The seven-year-old’s father, University of Oxford research scientist Hongta Zhang, welcomed the decision.
He said: “We are very happy with the settlement, and it is good to be able to move on. Now we have got more care. It is good.
“Yiqun is now at school, and is a very happy little boy, always smiling.”
The court had heard the child needed constant care and would never work following the 30-hour labour at Hackney’s Homerton University Hospital, in February 2006.
Speaking outside court, the family’s solicitor Alison Appelboam-Meadows said: “No amount of money can ever give Yiqun the life he would have had if he had not suffered such serious injuries at the time of his birth.
“However, now a settlement has been agreed he can be provided with the care, equipment and therapies to maximise his potential.”
Judge Patrick Moloney, approving the settlement in court, said it was “a very sad case”.
And he said of the parents: “The care and attention they have provided to Yiqun must have been a terrible burden, much as they love their child.”
Margaret Bowron QC, for the hospital’s trust, told the court it was “delighted” the case had been settled.
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