UK court awards Maltese boy £4.25m for misdiagnosis

A 12-year-old Maltese boy was been awarded £4.25 million in damages after a consultant at a private hospital in the UK misdiagnosed an inherited disorder when he was a baby.

The High Court heard how paediatric neurologist Dr Gwilym Hosking, at London's Portland Hospital, failed to carry out a routine blood test on Luke Attard, the BBC reported. The test would have diagnosed his condition - a rare form of the genetic disorder called phenylketonuria (PKU).

As a result, his condition remained undetected for a further 12 months and Luke suffered brain damage. The Observer reported that when Luke was nine months old, in 1996, his parents took him to London, because his mother Theresa, was dissatisfied with a diagnosis of cerebral palsy given by medics in Malta. Dr Hosking reached an incorrect diagnosis of mixed cerebral palsy.

It was only 12 months later that specialist staff at London's Great Ormond Street Hospital diagnosed that Luke suffered from PKU that is an inherited disorder of body chemistry. Routine post-natal screening for increased levels of phenylalanine is carried out in British hospitals but, at the time of Luke’s birth, these tests were not carried out in Malta.

In May 2006 Luke's parents and Dr Hosking, who died in October 2006, reached a settlement on the basis that he was 90 per cent liable. The case reached the High Court last week where the judge agreed upon the £4.25 million settlement.

Luke’s family now live in St Leonards, East Sussex. He now has three younger brothers two of who also have PKU but received treatment in time, the Argus Lite reported.