WUNRN
"The constitution in Hungary
gives a mother the right to give birth at home but prevents her doing so by
arguing that the practical conditions to ensure a safe home birth do not exist:
a situation created by the refusal of the ANTSZ, Hungary's public health
authority, to issue licences to independent midwives, and the
failure of successive governments to implement regulations compelling them to
do so."
HUNGARY - MIDWIFE TAKEN TO COURT FOR
CHAMPIONING HOME BIRTHS
Gynaecologist faces five years in Hungarian prison, prompting protests over
authorities' hardline childbirth policy
Amelia Hill - 22 October 2010
Twenty minutes after the
expectant mother went into labour, the police were knocking at the door. While
mother and child were taken to hospital and treated well, the midwife at the
birthing centre was thrown in jail. Dr Agnes Gereb is now being kept in maximum
security conditions in a Budapest prison, facing a five-year prison sentence.
Gereb,
founder of the Napvilág birthing centre, is a highly experienced gynaecologist,
midwife and internationally recognised home birth expert. She has successfully
helped deliver 3,500 babies at home. But her reputation means nothing to the
authorities in Hungary, a country that has,
campaigners say, relentlessly pushed to criminalise home births and make
hospital deliveries compulsory.
In the hours after her arrest on
5 October, Gereb was subjected to intense interrogation before being called to
a closed court at 10pm. Held for a further week without charge, she finally
appeared in an open court on 12 October, shackled in leg chains and handcuffs,
accused of negligent malpractice. She also faces several other charges,
including one for manslaughter relating to an earlier home birth when a baby
died after a difficult labour.
Gereb's is the story of home
birthing in modern Hungary and has sparked international outrage. A hero to
women across Hungary, she has dedicated the past 30 years to defending the
right of mothers to choose their birthing experience.
Her arrest is, say her
supporters, the "logical climax of [the state's] campaign of vilification
and criminalisation" of those who support a mother's right to have a
non-hospital birth.
Support for
her plight is growing, with backers including Sheila Kitzinger, the British
natural childbirth activist and
author, Professor Wendy Savage, Britain's first female obstetric consultant,
and the Labour MP Caroline Flint.
The constitution in Hungary gives
a mother the right to give birth at home but prevents her doing so by arguing
that the practical conditions to ensure a safe home birth do not exist: a
situation created by the refusal of the ANTSZ, Hungary's public health
authority, to issue licences to independent midwives, and the
failure of successive governments to implement regulations compelling them to
do so.
Women wanting to give birth at
home, therefore, find themselves in an unlicensed and unregulated hinterland.
Any midwife who gives medical assistance is breaking the law. In the last five
years, police investigations have become increasingly aggressive. There are
just 15 midwives in Hungary who will help women give birth at home. Five of
these currently face lengthy prison sentences.
"The state's campaign
against home births has lasted nearly 20 years and is rooted in the
determination of a clique of obstetricians to maintain their own power and
earning potential from hospital births," said Donal Kerry, spokesman for
the Hungarian Homebirth Community.
Obstetrics is one of the most
lucrative branches of Hungary's supposedly free healthcare system, explains
Kerry, in which parents expect to pay up to a month's salary to the doctor, who
is legally obliged to be present at each birth.
Obstetric care in
Mirtill Rackevei gave birth to
her three daughters at home between 2002 and 2006, with Gereb's help. "I
decided to have home births because I had seen my sister have a child in
hospital and it was awful," she said. "My sister was reluctant to
have any more children because of her traumatic experience but my home births
were so lovely that she decided to try it," she added. "The
difference for her was so great that she went on to have third and fourth
children, also at home. So now she has three children in the world who would
not exist were it not for Agi. Agi is a wonderful woman."
In addition to the most recent
case, Gereb is facing four other criminal charges. Two involved births where
postpartum haemorrhage was greater than normal – a fairly common occurence in
obstetrical practice. In both cases, the mothers and babies were discharged
from hospital after a few hours. The other two cases are more serious: one
concerning an infant who died as a result of shoulder dystocia and the other a
twin who suffered a lack of oxygen at birth and died seven months later. Only
the parents of the child who died from shoulder dystocia are pressing charges.
The others all support Gereb.
Tamas
Fazekas, one of a team of lawyers fighting Gereb's cause with the Hungarian
civil liberties union, says she is confined to her four-woman cell for 23 hours
a day. "She is subjected to strip searches, only allowed to see her family once a month — they have
not been allowed to visit her since her arrest — and can have just one
10-minute phone call every week. When she appeared before the public court she
was in handcuffs and leg shackles so tight that she had a 10cm bleeding wound
on her leg," he said. The day after Gareb was arrested, more than 600
people protested outside Budapest's remand prison. Two days later, more than
2,000 people made a human chain from the municipal court to the national
parliament.
Campaigners have asked the
Hungarian constitutional court and the European court of human rights to force
the Hungarian government to draw up necessary regulations without further
delay.