A Sri Lankan refugee couple has won a legalbattle against the UK National Health Service (NHS).

Sinthiya Rajatheepan (29) and her husband Sivarajah, came to Britain from Sri Lanka as refugees in 2008. While in the UK they gave birth to Nilujan Rajatheepan, on July 16, 2009, at King George Hospital in Goodmayes, Essex . Sinthiya Rajatheepan was just 21 when Nilujan was born. Actions were taken against NHS after her child was brain damaged due to the hospital’s failure to explain her the importance of feeding a newborn.

A community midwife visited that visited Sinthiya’s residence after she was discharged from hospital discovered that, Nilujan was pale and lethargic and that he had not been fed for more than 15 hours. The hypoglycemic state of Nilujan resulted in catastrophic brain injuries. Nilujan (8), is now diagnosed with cerebral palsy which severely impaired physical and cognitive function.

Judge McKenna ruled that the midwives failed to hire an interpreter to tell her to feed her baby. As a consequence, the eight-year-old is now in line for multi-million-pound NHS compensation because midwives were negligent in failing to tackle the language barrier.

According to the Judge, the medics at the King George’s Hospital were constantly ignoring Sinthiya’s concerns about the crying baby by ‘repeating the mantra that it is perfectly normal for newborn babies to cry’.