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Michael Stewart presented to the Redcliffe Hospital Emergency Department in March 2016 complaining of abdominal pain.
The 63-yr-old former New York ad agency art director – who suffered other serious medical conditions – underwent a laparotomy a few days later to treat bowel obstructions during which two bowel perforations occurred.
They resulted serious complications that necessitated three further open abdominal surgeries the following week and left the patient with permanent bowel dysfunction, a stoma and a colostomy bag.
Stewart also suffered a major stroke which – unrecognised until it had progressed – left him with major neurological deficits.
He filed a lawsuit in April 2022 against the hospital which eventually admitted the severe brain and bowel deficits – including speech and motor impediments – were as a result of its negligence.
The principal issue in dispute was whether the hospital should be responsible for care for over the patient’s remaining lifetime based on the cost of institutional care or the far higher cost of having care provided to him in his own home
Stewart’s statistical life expectancy – he was 71 at the date of the 2024 Queensland Supreme Court trial – was a further 15.7 years but his pre-existing cardiovascular conditions and the stroke reduced this to about 5 years.
Justice Cooper and the Court of Appeal ruled that although there were many benefits to the patient in having his care and treatment performed in-home, that those benefits had to be considered against the reasonableness of the additional expense of $3,828,000 of doing so.
They were not satisfied that the additional expense would be likely to result in health benefits to the patient that were significantly better than those likely to be achieved at the Ozanam Villa Aged Care Facility at Clontarf where he was residing.
Stewart appealed further to the High Court who unanimously ruled the lower courts had been wrong.
Determining what is reasonable for the injured person does not involve any consideration of what is reasonably fair to the wrongdoer, they observed.
Rather, the patient was “entitled to compensation in a sum which, so far as money can do, would put him in the same position as he would have been in had [the hospital] not acted negligently”.
He only had to prove that home care was reasonable.
Stewart had done that – the High Court concluded – by demonstrating such care arrangements are common in the community and the significant psychological and emotional benefits to him, of being in a residence that he could share with his son Jesse and his dog.
Stewart’s choice to live at home was reasonable and the hospital must therefore pay the reasonable cost thereof.
The matter was remitted back to the Supreme Court of Queensland for precise calculation of final damages which will include up to $5 million in damages for the cost of in-home care for his forecast remaining lifetime.
Categories: Damages , Medical Negligence