Parents of David John, a baby boy who had his left arm amputated while five-months old, have expressed dissatisfaction with K15 million government has resolved to give as compensation.<\/p>\n
Initially, David\u2019s father, John, through lawyer Chimwemwe Sikwese, were demanding K150 million as compensation.<\/p>\n
David \u2013 who was admitted to Kamuzu Central Hospital (KCH) on April 1 last year after a malaria attack\u2013ended up having his left arm amputated after a clinician<\/p>\n
forgot to remove a tight band wrapped on the hand for three days.<\/p>\n
But spokesperson for the Ministry of Justice, Apoche Itimu, said in an emailed response that the matter is not yet concluded.<\/p>\n
Said Itimu: \u201cWe are still engaged in negotiation over this matter and once concluded, the Registrar will have to issue the consent order.\u201d<\/p>\n
She, however, could not say as to what factors or areas are being used when considering the right figure to be given as compensation.<\/p>\n
In an interview with The Daily Times <\/em>Monday, David\u2019s father said he was informed by his lawyer that government had settled for K15 million and described the amount as \u201cpeanuts\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThe money is not enough if you consider raising a child and giving him the best education up until he turns 18 years. We are already going through hard times as a family and now faced with this challenge of raising our son with this condition, it doesn\u2019t help matters. David\u2019s health is also not good, we are spending more days at the hospital and the doctors can\u2019t tell us what is wrong with him,\u201d said John.<\/p>\n He added: \u201cI have already informed my lawyer about our position. We will go ahead and sign for the money but we are calling upon other organisations to intervene so that government should give an extra K15 million to bring the figure at least to K30 million.\u201d<\/p>\n While confirming of the development, Sikwese emphasized that the agreement is in \u201cprinciple\u201d and that negotiations will continue before signing a settlement agreement in court on the exact figure to be paid.<\/p>\n \u201cIndeed I met the Attorney General last week and that is the figure that government is willing to pay. I must say it is on the lower side. What will happen now is that we will do fine-tuning of the amount to be paid and I hope government will raise the figure,\u201d said Sikwese.<\/p>\n When asked as to why he thinks government is offering an amount far below the proposed money, the lawyer said perhaps the authorities are basing it on policy, adding that government would not want open a can of warms when it comes to giving compensations.<\/p>\n Earlier Sikwese cited professional negligence, pain and suffering, disfigurement, loss of amenity of life, future loss, as among considerations when doing costing.<\/p>\n Government, through former Minister of Health Jean Kalilani apologized to parents of the baby for what happened.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Parents of David John, a baby boy who had his left arm amputated while five-months old, have expressed dissatisfaction with K15 million government has resolved to give as compensation. Initially, David\u2019s father, John, through lawyer Chimwemwe Sikwese, were demanding K150 million as compensation. David \u2013 who was admitted to Kamuzu Central Hospital (KCH) on April […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":18061,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18057"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18057\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18062,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18057\/revisions\/18062"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}