$50M+ more in med mal verdict

A Florida jury added an extra $50 million in damages at the close of the “Take Care of Maya” medical malpractice trial Thursday, bringing the total penalty to more than a quarter-billion dollars.

The panel found Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg liable on all counts against it, ruling the facility wrongfully separated Maya Kowalski from her mother — who later took her own life.

All told, the renowned medical center is facing damages of $261 million in a case featured in the popular Netflix documentary.

The jury awarded the Kowalski family monies for a range of offenses, including wrongfully placing the child under video surveillance for 48 consecutive hours and making her strip down to shorts and a training bra for a photograph.

Kowalski was admitted to the hospital in October 2016 by her mother for treatment of a painful neurological condition known as chronic regional pain syndrome.

Once there, Beata Kowalski requested certain experimental drug treatments for her daughter, which made doctors wary.

Doctors eventually concluded that she suffered from Munchausen-byproxy syndrome, where a parent manufactures or exaggerates a child’s symptoms to garner sympathy and attention.

Although that was not the case with Kowalski, physicians are taking note of a rise in cases of the syndrome, fueled by a number of factors — including the lure of social media attention, the flood of medical information available online and an eroding trust in the medical establishment.

“People go to WebMD now and they think they know what is going on with their kid,” one Fort Myers, Fla.-based pediatrician told The Post. “With some people it becomes obsessive. I see more parents pushing back now than ever. It’s a real issue.”