Boy wins £85,000 in compensation from clinic

A YOUNGSTER was yesterday handed £85,000 in compensation after a Nicosia District Court ruled that the doctor and hospital had failed properly to treat his eye injury back in 1997.

The boy, who at the time was eight years old, had been rushed by his father and aunt to a private clinic in Nicosia in April 1997 after he was accidentally hit in the eye by a plank of wood by another boy he was playing with.

But just four months later, the boy was again under the knife after his grandmother noticed that his eye couldn’t open while he was watching television. The boy was taken to a different clinic this time, before being taken abroad for further treatment.

He has now lost 90 per cent vision in the eye.

It was then that the father decided to sue the two doctors who treated his son, as well as the clinic.

According to the testimonies of the father, aunt and other eyewitnesses, the boy was cut just a couple of centimetres above his eye and was continuously bleeding.

The boy was taken to a private clinic in Nicosia, where the doctor on call treated the injury before recommending that a plastic surgeon look at the injury after it has been treated.

During the trial, witnesses from the boy’s family gave statements as did the doctors being sued and a doctor who had examined the boy abroad.

Ruling on the case, Judge Fivos Zomenis ruled that the clinic in question was liable for the first treatment of the young boy not being properly conducted, while also holding the first doctor who examined him responsible. The second doctor who examined the boy was acquitted, with the court ruling that because he was a specialist hired by the hospital, he could not be deemed liable for the first diagnoses.

Judge Zomenis ruled that the clinic was responsible for the first doctor and therefore responsible for any problems that may have occurred, ordering the clinic to pay a total of £85,000 in damages for the youngster.

The court dismissed a claim for compensation from the boy’s father for the psychological stress he had endured.

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