Czech Republic Court Awards Damages To Romani Woman Claiming Sterilization Without Consent

Main Category: Litigation / Medical Malpractice
Also Included In: Women's Health / Gynecology;  Fertility
Article Date: 17 Oct 2007 - 8:00 PDT

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An Ostrava, Czech Republic, regional court on Friday ordered a local hospital to pay a Romani, or Gypsy, woman 500,000 koruna, or $25,800, in damages for performing a sterilization procedure without first obtaining her consent, Agence France-Presse reports (Agence France-Presse, 10/12). According to Michaela Kopalova -- attorney for the plaintiff, Iveta Cervenakova -- the ruling marked the first time a court in the Czech Republic ordered compensation to a Romani woman claiming sterilization without consent.

Otakar Motejl, the Czech ombudsman, in December 2004 released a report on an investigation of 87 complaints from Romani women, finding that "no consent for sterilization was given" to the women that "would be free of error" (AP/International Herald Tribune, 10/12). A Czech Public Defender of Rights report in December 2005 on the cases that said the charges against the government were justified and called on the government to revise its policy on sterilization and compensating people forced to undergo such procedures. A September 2006 draft report by the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women said the Czech Republic government had not completely answered allegations about the practice.

An Ostrava court in 2005 was the first court in the country to rule against a hospital in a sterilization case, saying physicians failed to obtain consent in the 2001 sterilization of Helena Ferencikova. The hospital, which was ordered to apologize, filed an appeal of the ruling (Kaiser Daily Women's Health Report, 9/7/06).

Cervenakova Ruling
Cervenakova has said that she never gave Ostrava's municipal hospital her consent to perform the procedure and that she thought the hospital only had fitted her with a contraceptive coil. Cervenakova said she found she had been sterilized when she went to her physician to have the contraceptive removed because she wanted to have another child.

The court ruled that Cervenakova experienced physical and emotional damages as a result of the experience (Agence France-Presse, 10/12). The ruling also ordered the hospital to apologize to Cervenakova (AP/International Herald Tribune, 10/12). The hospital said it has Cervenakova's written consent to the procedure, adding that it is considering appealing the ruling (CTK/Prague Daily Monitor, 10/15).

Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.kaisernetwork.org. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at http://www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation© 2005 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.

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