Sarah Maria van Meurs died days after she gave birth at Albury Base Hospital. Photo: Vanessa Hayden.
The NSW Supreme Court has approved payments totalling just over $500,000 to two young children of a woman who died in March 2023.
According to a judgment published last month, Sarah Maria van Meurs tragically died just 10 days after giving birth to her second child at Albury Base Hospital. She was 36 at the time.
Her husband Robert sued Albury Wodonga Health, the public health service jointly governed by the NSW and Victorian governments that manages the hospital.
He alleged staff gave his wife blood-thinning drugs she didn’t need, on top of other medication that also stops blood clotting, after doctors diagnosed a tear in one of her heart arteries. It is claimed this combination caused bleeding in her brain, which led to her death.
The hospital denied all these allegations and the court did not make any findings of negligence against Albury Wodonga Health.
After extensive negotiations, the parties reached a settlement resolving claims for mental harm and a compensation claim brought on behalf of the family.
But because two of the beneficiaries are young children, the law required a judge to approve the settlement to make sure it is in the children’s best interests.
Supreme Court Justice Richard Weinstein approved a settlement providing just over $500,000 in compensation from Albury Wodonga Health to two of Ms van Meurs’ young children. This money is to be held and invested in trust and used for their benefit until they reach adulthood.
In determining these amounts, Judge Weinstein considered the financial support they would have received from their mother, who worked as a highly respected town planner for Albury City Council.
“At the time of her death, the deceased apparently intended to take maternity leave and return first to work part-time, and then to full-time work when the baby turned one year of age,” the judge stated in his published judgement.
“[Ms van Meurs] had an excellent work history and I do not doubt that she would have excelled in her chosen profession. There was a contemporary division of labour between the [husband and wife] in their household, in the sense that both took an active interest in their children and jointly contributed their wages to the welfare of the family.”
The judge also noted that Albury Wodonga Health has not admitted that it breached its duty of care to Ms van Meurs or that any breach caused her death stating that the expert evidence on both breach of duty and causation is “highly contentious”. The settlement did not involve any admission of liability.
