The Founder Volume 5 Issue 4

The Founder | Thursday 4 November 2010
21
tf
Editor’s Feature
Imprisoned for a crime that
she did not commit
because it is not a crime...
The Founder editor Tom Shore explores a little-reported story
about the controversial nature of home-births in Hungary
and the unbelievable way that midwifes can be treated by the
authorities.
She was then held
for a further week
without charge before
she appeared in an
open court. When she
did appear, she was
shackled in leg chains
and handcuffs
On 5th October, a mother in a
house in Hungary undergoing an
ordinary medical examination
went into labour. Midwife Agnes
Gereb, 58, was contacted by phone
and asked to come to the mother’s
aid and deliver the child. The birth
outside of hospital was unplanned.
Ms Gereb is a highly experienced
obstetrician, gynaecologist, midwife
and is the founder of a birthing
centre. She has completed deliveries
for 3,500 babies at home.
Within a half hour of the mother
going into labour, an ambulance
was at her door, but with an additional
entourage of police officers
who took Ms Gereb into custody.
The mother was taken into hospital
where her newborn baby was
delivered safely and both were well
cared for.
Ms Gereb was taken to Budapest
Prison and at 10pm that same
night, after being interrogated
intensely, put in front of a closed
court.
She was then held for a further
week without charge before she appeared
in an open court. When she
did appear, she was shackled in leg
chains and handcuffs which caused
a bleeding wound, visible in court,
because they were incorrectly fitted
and too tight. This wound was later
treated and in the next trial, she
was not held in chains.
Ms Gereb stood accused of negligent
malpractice and one charge of
manslaughter relating to an earlier
birth after what has been said to be
a difficult labour.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s
Woman’s Hour, Tomas Fazekas, one
of Ms Gereb’s lawyers, explained
that ‘Hungary doesn’t have any
regulations on this issue so there
is no law concerning planned
homebirths. It’s not automatically a
crime.’
Campaigners say that authorities
in Hungary are trying to criminalise
home births and to make
hospital births compulsory. Ms
Gereb herself has been an active
campaigner for a mother’s right to
have her baby delivered at home for
30 years.
Ms Gereb faces a five year sentence,
and after her trial, was held
under maximum security conditions
When asked why Ms Gereb was
facing criminal charges, Mr Fazekas
replied ‘It is not clear to me so I am
very sad to say that this is not clarified
by the police so of course they
have given her charges, but with the
charges they have not shown any
kind of evidence.‘
The Hungarian constitution
technically allows mothers to give
birth in their own home but at the
same time it states that the practical
conditions required to ensure a
safe home birth do not exist. This
latter clause is on the authority of
the ANTSZ, the Hungarian health
authority who refuse to sign over
licences to independent midwives.
‘Technically it is no more difficult
than it is anywhere else in the world
or in Europe [to deliver a baby at
home], but the regulations are not
clear,’ Mr Fazekas adds, ‘there is no
low-end regulation on this despite
the fact that there is an EU directive
on it.’
When asked how he was planning
to defend Ms Gereb, Mr Fazekas
replied that he was interested
in the evidence that the police
currently hold ‘because we have not
been shown any sign of evidence
despite the fact that she is being
held in pre-trial detention. We
have asked to be shown everything:
forensic experts’ opinions, police
reports... anything,’ he said. But Mr
Fazekas’ team have been shown
nothing.
The authorities have stepped up
their efforts to crack down on home
births in the last five years. It is
estimated that there are 15 midwives
who will assist home births. 5
of these are currently facing lengthy
sentences in jail.
There are some claims of conspiracy
in the country and that power
and money lie behind the authority’s
insistence on hospital births.
Donal Kerry, spokesman for the
Hungarian Homebirth Community
has claimed that, despite Hungary’s
apparently free healthcare system,
parents expect to pay up to a
month’s salary to the doctor present
at the birth for each child. Doctors
are legally obliged to attend births.
Obstetric care in Hungary is of an
excellent standard, but campaigners
say that the problem is that the
procedures are doctor-centric and
highly interventionist. Inductions
and episiotomies and standard
procedure.
Ms Gereb is facing additional
criminal charges for two births
where postpartum haemorrhage
was too great, one death of an
infant due to shoulder dystocia and
one death of a twin who suffered
a lack of oxygen during their birth
and died seven months later.
The mothers and newborns in
the postpartum haemorrhage cases
were all discharged from hospital
within hours and only the parents
of the child in the shoulder dystocia
case are pressing charges. The
parents of all other cases have expressed
their support for Ms Gereb.
Mr Fazekas, who represents Ms
Gereb on behalf of a team from the
Hungarian civil liberties union also
revealed that she is confined to her
four-woman cell for 23 hours of
each day and is subjected to strip
searches. She is only allowed to see
her family once a month though
and they have not been granted
permission to see each other since
her arrest, but is allowed a tenminute
phone call once each week.
The day after Gereb was arrested,
over 600 people protested outside
the remand prison in Budapest.
Two days later, they created a
human chain from the municipal
court to the national parliament
2,000 people long.
The Hungarian constitutional
court and the European court of
human rights have been lobbied by
campaigners to draw up necessary
regulations as soon as possible.
TS.