At the beginning of January, the High Court in Olomouc upheld the judgment of the Regional Court in Brno in the famous "Brno ambulance" case, agreeing with the claimants. After almost seven years, a mother and her son will receive an apology for infringement of their rights relating to an involuntary transfer to hospital after childbirth.

Each of them will also receive a financial compensation in the amount of 50,000 CZK (1,850 EUR). The unsuccessful defendant, Medical Rescue Service of the South Moravian Region, may still appeal to the Supreme Court.

Involuntary transportation

The dispute centered around whether an ambulance doctor has the right to force (assisted by the police) a mother and her home-born newborn to go to a hospital in a situation where the child exhibits no signs of ill health and the parents wish to remain at home with the child and seek further medical care at a later date.

Another disputed question in this case was who was responsible for the baby’s hypothermia, diagnosed upon admission to the hospital.

According to the verbal judgment of the High Court, the Court of First Instance was correct in finding for the claimants and correctly followed established legal precedents. The High Court judges mentioned in particular the European Court of Human Rights case Hanzelka Family v. the Czech Republic, which stated that childbirth is one of the most sensitive moments in one’s life, implying there must be particularly urgent reasons and imminent threat in order to involuntarily hospitalize the newborn. The judges also mentioned a Czech Constitutional Court finding of 2015 that requires an involuntary intervention by the medical staff to be justified by a high probability of endangerment of the child.

The judges of the High Court ruled that the baby’s hypothermia was caused by the steps taken by the ambulance personnel. Evidence showed that the baby had been heated on the mother’s abdomen until the arrival of the ambulance, and that the summoned doctor had not suspected any hypothermia. Only following his action was the baby separated from the mother for a longer period, without any use of a thermal foil or a transport incubator.

Child’s interest

The claimants’ attorney, Zuzana Candigliota, says about the case:

"In my closing argument, I emphasized that under Czech law there is no obligation for parents to have their child automatically hospitalized after birth. It is primarily the child’s parents who determine what is in the child’s interest, and they take also other considerations into account besides the medical aspect, such as the child’s interest in a calm postpartum contact with the mother and trouble-free breastfeeding. Allowing medical professionals to freely use involuntary hospitalization also outside of cases of imminent threat to the child’s health would lead to an undesirable abuse of this possibility by the medical personnel and to violations of patients’ rights."