Dec 11
20
http://www.peticiok.com/igazsagot_gereb_agnesnek
We, the undersigned express our indignation about the prejudicial, preconceived and unjust legal and medical campaign that has been orchestrated against the obstetrician-gynecologist, midwife and psychologist, Dr. Ágnes Geréb.
Dr. Ágnes Geréb is the internationally acclaimed midwife and first homebirth practitioner in Hungary. On October 5th, 2010 while dealing with a homebirth she was arrested, imprisoned and subsequently transferred to house arrest, which she currently endures. In March, 2011, she was sentenced to two years imprisonment (currently under appeal) and suspended for five years from working as an obstetrician-gynecologist and midwife after being found guilty by a criminal court of negligent malpractice causing death and of negligent malpractice causing permanent damage. Her current house arrest remains in place solely to prevent Dr. Gereb from practicing as a midwife. The police and prosecution services are also completing their investigations into three homebirth-related incidents which lead to further criminal charges against Dr. Geréb.
We expect the Hungarian judicial system to provide fair and equal treatment for Ágnes Geréb. We are not seeking a declaration of her innocence, but we call for the conditions to be put into place so that Dr. Geréb can defend herself properly in the criminal court. We believe the moves against Dr Geréb are intended to discredit her and by doing so make homebirth impossible, and the means to this end is the use of unjust legal procedure against her. There is clear evidence that the current judicial system applies double standards as to how it treats Dr. Geréb by comparison with hospital maternity doctors when adverse birth incidents arise. To begin with no other doctor in Hungary is, or ever has been, put under house arrest. She remains the only doctor in Hungary ever sentenced to imprisonment because of malpractice, and she is the only doctor whose professional performance has been evaluated directly and solely by the criminal courts. All the medical specialists appointed by the courts as judicial experts are exclusively hospital doctors with a clear and often stated position against homebirth. The opinions they offer on the actions of Dr Geréb are based entirely on hospital protocols and the courts to-date have failed to counter this bias by refusing to engage the services of experienced midwives or international medical experts with homebirth experience. Not only do these hospital doctors fail in their duty to act impartially, but their suitability as experts is also in question when most of the medical procedures they cite in their criticisms of Dr Gereb’s actions are either refuted by the WHO or at the very least considered as questionable. These flawed court procedures and the nature of the sustained attacks against Dr. Geréb further strengthens the sense that we are witnessing a show trial. Probably the most striking example of this unfair and aggressive attitude can be seen by the flawed and unjust decision to keep Dr Geréb under house arrest for more than a year now. The officially stated position of the Court and the Prosecutor’s Office is that the house arrest is needed in order to avoid the danger of Dr. Geréb repeating “the crime”, even though it is blatantly obvious that intentional repetition in the case of negligence is conceptually impossible. Dr. Geréb’s current involvement with the criminal system is the direct consequence of Hungarian governments failure, for decades, to introduce the necessary legal framework required to support the constitutional right to homebirth. This failure to legislate has not only violated Dr Geréb’s rights but also the rights of other out-of-hospital birth attendants to have their birth actions evaluated impartially and professionally by a medical committee of their peers, rather than a criminal court.
Because of the foregoing, civilians and organizations who uphold and promote civil and human rights both inHungaryand abroad have now joined forces to create The Justice for Ágnes Geréb Movement.
The Movement’s first action is a request that the following four actions be undertaken to remove the anomalies and flawed procedures cited above:
1. We demand that the authorities immediately release Ágnes Geréb from house arrest.
2. We propose the suspension of the current criminal processes against all midwives until the legal framework for evaluating the actions of independent midwives at adverse birth incidents are properly formed. In our opinion the issues of who evaluates the actions of out-of-hospital practitioners and against which professional standards their actions are assessed, fulfills the criteria for the suspension of all current legal procedures.
3. We propose that out-of-hospital birth practitioners be legally recognized as an independent medical profession with the power to form its own professional supervising board, to agree its own working protocols, to create its own representative organization, and with the power to nominate midwives as appointed judicial experts when required for out-of-hospital birth enquiries.
4. For practical reasons we recommend that Dr. Geréb and others of her associates in the Napvilág Birth Centre, Hungary be genuinely involved with all the legislative processes related to out-of-hospital birth practices as they have many decades of experience in this field and also their expertise is internationally recognized.
We, in The Justice for Ágnes Geréb Movement, believe that a government which stands for justice will finally stop the repeated and continuous violation of the law concerning the criminal procedure against Ágnes Geréb and will intervene to allow her receive fair and equal legal treatment.
The Justice for Ágnes Geréb Movement
For further information please contact:
Donal Kerry
International Spokesperson
donalkerry@hotmail.com
Phone: 0036309242190
