BANGOR, Maine (AP) The federal government will pay $8 million to settle a claim that a federally funded clinic failed to alert a mother or authorities of signs of abuse of a 6-month-old boy.
Alexandria Orduna, of Brewer, contended medical professionals failed to recognize or report abuse inflicted on her son by a man who was living with her in 2019.
The abuse wasn’t noted and reported until her son was taken to a hospital emergency room in Bangor.
The boy is now almost entirely blind, and his brain stopped growing at the time of his attack, the Bangor Daily News reported.
“This little boy couldn’t talk, but his body could and his health care practitioners didn’t listen to what it was saying,” Terry Garmey, one of the mother’s attorneys, told the newspaper.
Orduna sued the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which funds Medicaid, which paid for the boy’s care.
The settlement sets aside $17,000 a month in a trust account for the rest of the boy’s life to contribute to the cost of his long-term medical needs and accommodations.
The man who inflicted the injuries pleaded guilty last year to aggravated assault and other charges. He was ordered to serve four years in prison.
