A 20-year-old woman from Lincolnshire in England, who sued her mother’s general practitioner (GP), claiming she should never have been born has won the right to millions in damages. Evie Toombes, a showjumper suffers from a spinal condition called the spina bifida and sometimes spends 24 hours a day connected to tubes, The Sun reported. In her condition, Evie was born with a deformed spine and spinal cord and the spine has gaps due to stunted development. Evie, who is a resident of Skegness, Lincs filed a lawsuit of ‘Wrongful Life’ against Dr Philip Mitchell who did not give the right advice to her mother about folic acid medications, resulting which she was born with a permanent spinal cord disability condition.
Dr Mitchell has been accused of failing to advise Evie’s mother Caroline to take necessary supplements before getting pregnant. In her lawsuit, Evie had said had the doctor effectively advised her mother to take folic acid to help lessen risk of the spinal deformity in her baby, she would have delayed conceiving and thus Evie would not have been born.
In a landmark verdict at the London’s High Court today, Judge Rosalind Coe QC awarded Evie to right to a huge compensation. Even though the exact amount of the payout has not been calculated yet, Evie’s lawyers say it will be a huge amount as it will help to cover costs of Evie’s lifelong needs.
Despite the illness, Evie had made a sparkling career in show jumping and was even felicitated with the ‘Inspiration Young Person Award’ in 2018, where she met the Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle.
Evie’s lawyer, Mrs Rodway had said that the young woman’s parents had stayed away from conceiving a child but after Dr Philip’s advice, they decided to go ahead with it. “If Mrs Toombes had been properly advised by Dr Philip, she would not have gone ahead to conceive as quickly as she did and would have waited to complete the course of folic acid treatment," Mrs Rodway was quoted as saying.
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