A court has ordered a doctor who conducted a failed vasectomy on a man and assured him that he didn’t have to use contraception anymore, to look after the patient’s daughter who was born after the procedure, until she turns eighteen years.
According to odditycentra.com, doctor Diego Naranjo from Medellin, Colombia now has the burden of paying millions of pesos to support the patient in taking care of his unplanned child until she attains universal adult suffrage.
It is reported that the man visited the doctor to undergo the family planning procedure in 2012, but ended up leaving his wife pregnant and having an unplanned baby the next year after getting intimate. Sperm tests conducted later showed that the vasectomy had failed. The parents of the baby became unhappy and sued the doctor for committing a medical error that caused them both financial and emotional issues.
“As a result of this unexpected conclusion, the patient was not recommended to continue using contraceptive methods to avoid the risk of pregnancy. When it was proven that the parents did not want to procreate more children, it was concluded that there was an impact on their life projects that had repercussions in the immaterial field, especially considering the precarious economic situation of the father, who currently cannot work due to their health problems,” the court is quoted to have said.
It is reported that Dr Naranjo will have to pay the patient’s family 80 current minimum wages, or 92 million pesos ($20,300) in moral damages, 60 million pesos ($13,200) in legal fees, and 143 million pesos ($31,500) to support the unhappy family in taking care of their unplanned child.
However, interestingly, the said unplanned child is now 10 years old, so the doctor only has eight more years to have some respite.
The child’s father reportedly suffers from a debilitating condition called severe bilateral hearing loss, which prevents him from working. He experiences frequent dizziness and vomiting and must wear a hearing aid to hear properly. With his condition, he is unable to work for income to take care of the little girl.