Woman Sues Clinic for Giving Her Flu Shot Instead of Birth Control, Resulting in Pregnancy

A “wrongful life” lawsuit alleges that Yesenia Pacheco’s 3-year-old daughter Sandra is the result of a mix-up at a community health clinic. (Photo: Kirotv.com) 

Yesenia Pacheco, a mom of two school-age young daughters, didn’t want to have more children. Which is why she had been getting regular every-three-months injections of the birth control shot Depo-Provera at a local community health clinic near her home in Seattle.

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But in late 2011, she did become pregnant — and a lawsuit filed on Aug. 3 alleges that her surprise pregnancy was the result of an error at her clinic, Neighborcare Health. Pacheco came to the clinic on Sept. 30, 2011, and she was mistakenly given a flu shot rather than her regular Depo-Provera injection, the lawsuit alleges.

When she returned to the clinic in December for her next birth-control shot, clinic records showed that she’d had a flu vaccine instead, according to the suit. “They instantly gave her a pregnancy test before giving her the Depo-Provera shot she came in for, and it showed she was pregnant,” her lawyer Steve Alvarez tells Yahoo Parenting.

“The health clinic told her it was due to a ‘miscommunication,’ and they suggested she consider having an abortion. That wasn’t an option for Pacheco, who is Catholic, says Alvarez.

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Instead, she had the baby, a little girl named Sandra, in Aug. 2012. Pacheco had a rough pregnancy; she developed diabetes and had to have a C-section. Soon after her birth, Sandra was diagnosed with a brain disorder called polymicrogyria. The condition causes cognitive, motor-skill, and attention-span deficits, as well as seizures, says Alvarez.

Sandra’s disorder is genetic and was not the result of anything that happened at the clinic, he says. But it does mean that Pacheco must make huge personal and financial sacrifices to properly care for her little girl.

Pacheco “loves her child,” says Alvarez, “but she needs enormous care. She’ll need it for the rest of her life.” Pacheco has had to scale back her dreams of going to school and working because taking care of Sandra and her other children takes up all of her time.

The lawsuit names the federal government as the defendant, because the Neighborcare clinic is funded by the government, says Alvarez. Because Neighborcare Health is not named in the lawsuit, the organization cannot comment directly on it, Joseph Sparacio, chief development officer at Neighborcare, tells Yahoo Parenting.

But Sparacio did say that his colleagues have “great empathy” for Pacheco, and he adds that they are working harder “to make our injection process more mistake-proof.”

“As soon as it was recognized that Ms. Pacheco had not received the scheduled Depo-Provera, we were open and forthright with Ms. Pacheco,” says Sparacio. “Neighborcare Health takes patient safety very seriously, and as any health-care provider should we are diligent about learning from any adverse incident like this, in an effort to make care as safe as we possibly can.”

Though it was only officially filed last week, the suit has been in the works since shortly after Sandra was born. Alvarez says it took three years before it could be officially filed because of complicated procedural rules when it comes to naming the federal government as the defendant.

The amount of money the suit seeks for damages has not been specified yet, but the suit claims that because of “negligent acts and/or omissions to perform the medical care with due care,” [Sandra] “sustained a wrongful life.”

“Wrongful life is to compensate Sandra for all the medical and therapy expenses she’ll incur during her life, as well as her pain and suffering from being born with a brain disorder that will limit her life,” he says. Washington State recognizes the legal concept of wrongful life, says Alvarez, though not all states do.

With the suit officially filed, Pacheco and her attorneys are now waiting to hear back from the federal government before they can go forward with bringing their case to court.

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