The Contentious-Administrative Court No. 5 of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria has forced the Canary Islands Health Service to compensate a mother with one million euro for imposing a natural twin birth that lasted up to 17 hours and caused irreversible brain injury in one of the children.
“They deprived the patient of dissenting from the vaginal delivery option, chosen by the doctors, without informing her of the high risks of childbirth, making possible the caesarean section technique that involved fewer risks for the mother and the foetuses,” says the sentence.
“For the first time, the right of the mother to choose the technique with which she wants to give birth is recognised,” says Javier Navarro, the lawyer for the affected woman, who adds that “this ruling establishes that the final decision is not made by the doctor but by of the patient, once informed of her situation and of the existing alternatives”.
Navarro explains that the physicians acted against the lex artis. “It is not about illustrating the dangers of caesarean section and the advantages of natural childbirth, but rather respecting the rights of the woman who is going to give birth, qualifying this faculty of women as inalienable.”
In addition, in the opinion of the lawyer, the doctrine established in the sentence “represents a notable advance in the rights of women and rejects the patriarchal conception that aborts any autonomy that it could have, and that can be described without ambiguity as obstetric violence,” he adds.
For all these reasons, the ruling condemns the Canary Islands Health Service to compensate the plaintiff with one million euro plus the interest accrued since June 13, 2018. The ruling indicates that “it must not only include the serious moral damages caused, but must also consider the much higher costs involved in caring for a child who suffers tetra paresis from cerebral palsy as a consequence of perinatal hypoxia”.
This judgment is not final. It is possible to file an appeal against it within 15 days.
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