Polish hospital should have offered abortion to save woman's life, says ombudsman

[June 13, 2023]  WARSAW (Reuters) - A Polish hospital should have told a woman who later died that terminating her pregnancy could save her life, an ombudsman said on Monday, amid anger over a case that has thrust the country's strict abortion laws back into the spotlight.

Along with Malta, Poland's anti-abortion laws are among the most restrictive in Europe, and the country enforced a near total ban on terminations in 2021, sparking mass protests.

The 33-year-old woman, named as Dorota, died of septic shock after spending three days in hospital in the southern town of Nowy Targ.

She had been admitted to hospital after her waters broke in the 20th week of pregnancy. Her husband told Polish media that nobody at the hospital informed the couple of the danger Dorota was in and that her life could be saved by inducing a miscarriage because the child had very low chances of survival.

"The patient's rights have been violated, the right to provide health services in accordance with current medical knowledge has been violated, the patient's right to having services provided with due diligence has been violated," Patients' Rights Ombudsman Bartlomiej Chmielowiec told a news conference.

Krystyna Kacpura, head of the Foundation for Women and Family Planning, said that there were at least five cases of pregnant women dying whose families came out to the media, blaming the restrictions on abortion for their deaths.

People protest after the death of Izabela, a 30-year-old woman in the 22nd week of pregnancy with activists saying she could still be alive if the abortion law wouldn't be so strict, in Lodz, Poland November 6, 2021. Marcin Stepien/Agencja Wyborcza.pl via REUTERS/File Photo

Health Minister Adam Niedzielski said that doctors' errors were to blame and that every woman in Poland had the right to terminate a pregnancy if her life is in danger.

However, critics say that since the Constitutional Tribunal ruling that terminating pregnancies with foetal defects was unconstitutional came into effect in 2021, doctors have been more reluctant to perform terminations even in cases where the mother's life is in danger.

"The fact that women are losing their lives, that their health and safety are threatened, is a result of the draconian abortion laws in Poland," left-wing opposition lawmaker Magdalena Biejat told a news conference.

In 2021, a 30-year-old woman in the 22nd week of pregnancy died of septic shock at a hospital in Pszczyna, southern Poland, after doctors waited for her unborn baby's heart to stop beating.

(Reporting by Alan Charlish, Pawel Florkiewicz, Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk; Editing by Nick Macfie)

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