ACC may be in gun over twins

An Auckland woman who says she gave birth to twins after having her tubes tied says she sympathises "100 per cent" with a woman who has won the right to seek compensation from ACC after getting pregnant despite being sterilised.

ACC Minister Ruth Dyson has asked staff for a briefing on the implications of the decision by District Court Judge John Cadenhead that the 31-year-old woman's pregnancy could be considered a "personal injury" and that she had the right to lodge a claim with ACC.

On hearing of the case, an Auckland woman contacted the Herald to say she had unsuccessfully sought compensation from ACC after the birth of her twins in 1998.

She would consider taking her case back to ACC if the latest case was successful.

"There should be some form of compensation because the emotional trauma is so gobsmacking. I'm still taking antidepressants and that's seven to eight years later."

The woman had a tubal ligation at National Women's Hospital in Auckland about three months after the birth of her third child in 1994.

But in 1997 she discovered she was pregnant and a scan revealed twins.

"I was absolutely gutted - absolutely devastated. I thought 'Oh my God, I have three children'. We just couldn't cope financially or emotionally."

The woman, who gave birth by caesarean section in 1998, asked the doctors to "check around" to see why she had become pregnant. It was found only one tube had been successfully tied.

She and her husband arranged for the twin girls to be formally adopted by family members. Eight months after their birth the couple separated.

The woman, who is now 43, made a claim to ACC on the basis of medical misadventure but was turned down.

She said reading about the latest case she had "sympathy 100 per cent with that poor woman".

The "sterilised" woman's initial compensation claim was denied and she appealed. ACC has since appealed to the High Court.

Her lawyer, Sam Hood, told the Herald on Sunday the woman and her husband decided they could not afford more children so she had her tubes tied.

But she became pregnant with their fifth child and not knowing she was pregnant, exposed the fetus to alcohol and second-hand smoke.

The baby boy was born in March last year and suffered extreme eczema and a heart murmur, which he needed ongoing medical care for.

National's ACC spokeswoman, Katherine Rich, said the scheme's costs would skyrocket and its credibility would plummet if unwanted pregnancy was compensated for as a personal injury by accident.

The latest claim "potentially opens the floodgates for claims as a result of all other failed contraceptive measures", she said.

But ACC expert John Miller said the case was unlikely to spark a backlog of similar claims as the definition of personal injury by accident was very specific.