“There are not enough nurses, midwives, and already enough doctors, and this shortage is palpable in state, district and municipal hospitals, due to years of bad management at the expense of the private sector,” she pointed out.
“There are no rules. We have been saying for years that there should be a standard of health care, of midwifery care. But if there is such a standard, it will require us to say that a ward of 20 women cannot have one or two midwives on duty and then it will shine even more the deficit of the system. And it happens that we do not introduce normative rules to control, so as not to show how many shortcomings the health care has,” said Maria Petrova.
She pointed out that there is a “pathological tendency – doctor available” – he is at home most often and is called when necessary. The other bad practice is to have a doctor available for an entire hospital who quite often is not a specialist in a certain area.
“One doctor is responsible for all patients and this is a widespread practice in the province. One midwife takes care of 20 women. No matter how conscientious she is, she cannot do her job. The huge problem is bad management. In the last 15-20 years, we have had quite a few ministers who were obstetricians and gynecologists, but the focus was always on the financial issue, why do more c-sections, why do we give birth naturally. In fact, the high rate of c-sections is because it is planned and we can afford enough staff, the lawyer said .
According to her, in cases like the one in Ruse, the law provides that at least the midwife on duty will be disciplined and punished. If it turns out that the lack of care is the cause of the death of the woman in labor, then it is possible to talk about criminal proceedings and, if proven, bear responsibility from 1 to 6 years.
According to lawyer Petrova, this is unlikely.
Tags: held criminally liable
