A young woman left with severe brain damage after two doctors misdiagnosed her condition has won a multi-million pound compensation settlement.

Former Waldegrave School pupil Morwenna Ganz, 26, will use the undisclosed sum to pay for specialist equipment and 24 hour care that she will need for the rest of her life.

The High Court ruled last year that Dr Amanda Childs and Dr John Lloyd were guilty of negligence after they thought Miss Ganz, then aged 14, was suffering from a viral illness and failed to spot she had pneumonia.

Miss Ganz’s concerned parents, from Teddington, eventually took her to Kingston Hospital where she fell into a coma and suffered severe brain damage.

The family’s lawyer Bernadette McGhie said Dr Lloyd and Dr Childs, who worked at a surgery in St Marks Road, Teddington, appealed the High Court’s decision, but it was later dropped and last week they agreed the financial settlement.

However, she said the family would have found it impossible to fund the case without legal aid, which the Government plans to limit from April, 2013, only to children who have suffered brain injury resulting in severe disability at birth or within eight weeks.

Miss Ganz’s father Marcus said: “We were convinced Morwenna had a strong case and were able to fund the preliminary investigations.

“But it would have been impossible for us to finance the resources for the extended period required, without legal aid to carry the case through to its successful outcome.”

Judge Justice David Foskett ruled in October 2010 that Miss Ganz’s brain damage could have been avoided if the doctors had got her to hospital earlier.

Miss Ganz is unable to speak but her intellect has been preserved and she is able to communicate in three languages through signing systems and computer technology.

She has not been able to complete her studies but her long-term goal is to go to university.