The parents of a child, who was born with fragile X syndrome, filed a claim for financial compensation of millions of shekels against the health fund whose members were three doctors who treated the mother, as well as against an association that performs genetic tests and, according to them, performed such a test on the parents before she became pregnant.
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Fragile X syndrome is a genetic disease that causes mental retardation that is inherited. The syndrome manifests itself in mental retardation of varying degrees and includes communication disorders and autism.
The lawsuit alleges against the association that it offers genetic testing, but does not test carriers of Fragile X and does not explain this fact to the parents of the tested in a proper way, allowing them to understand the meaning.
As a result, it is claimed, the association created a mistaken feeling among the parents, as if they had performed all the required genetic tests in such a way that they did not know that there were additional important tests that the mother had to perform.
The parents also claim in the lawsuit that the HMO and the defendant doctors knew that they had performed a test through the association, but they also did not direct the parents to complete genetic tests in general and for fragile X disease in particular, especially since the test is included in the medication basket.
Through attorneys Dr. Assaf Posner and Nathaniel Posner, it is claimed in the lawsuit that if the association or the health fund had explained to the parents what was required, the mother would have undergone another test, which would have found the carriers and a healthy child could have been born.
The lawsuit also claims that not only were the parents, who belong to the religious-national exterminator, under the mistaken impression that they were not at any risk due to the tests they performed at the association, but it seems that this was also the feeling of the doctors who did not refer them to any additional tests and were content with the tests performed by the association.
In addition to compensation, which is subject to the discretion of the court, the parents also demand punitive damages in the amount of NIS 1.5 million, claiming that this is not a one-time negligence of the association or the fund, but rather a prolonged negligence of many years, which is manifested, among other things, in the repeated avoidance of referring the mother for a carrier test for the syndrome – The fragile X, when only by luck the other children of the plaintiffs were born healthy.