An inspection has found that the recent death of a pregnant woman in a Polish hospital – which sparked mass protests blaming the tragedy on Poland’s near-total abortion ban – resulted from “wrong decisions” by the doctors treating her, the health minister has announced.
The 30-year-old woman, named only as Izabela, died from septic shock after doctors waited for her foetus, which had been diagnosed with severe birth defects, to first die. She was survived by her husband and young daughter.
"Thanks to the abortion law, there's nothing they can do," a woman texted her mother shortly before she died in hospital after doctors waited for the death of her foetus, which had birth defects.
Many blame her death on Poland’s near-total abortion ban https://t.co/5hQss5UVTI
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) November 4, 2021
After news of Izabela’s death emerged, Adam Niedzielski, the health minister, ordered an inspection of the hospital’s treatment of her. Last night, Niedzielski revealed that the results were now known, though he did not say when they would be published.
“Unfortunately it looks bad for the [medical] team that was working there,” Niedzielski told TVN24 this morning. Asked if this meant that Izabela’s death was the result of medical error, the minister confirmed that the findings “definitely go in that direction”.
“These were just wrong decisions, which unfortunately happen,” explained Niedzielski, though he refused to disclose any further details ahead of the publication of the report.
Many believe that the doctors’ reluctance to terminate Izabela’s pregnancy before the foetus died was a result of last year’s ruling by the constitutional court, which outlawed abortions due to the diagnosis of birth defects. That effectively banned almost all legal abortions in Poland.
Protesters have therefore blame the law – and the ruling party, whose MPs applied to the constitutional court for the ruling and whose leaders have expressed support for restricting abortion – for Izabela’s death.
However, conservatives have pointed to the fact that, even in its new stricter form, the abortion law still allows pregnancies to be terminated if they threaten the life or health of the mother.
They therefore argue that the Izabela’s death was caused by doctors who either misinterpreted the law or made some other kind of error.
Niedzielski himself said earlier this month that “perhaps the interpretation of last year’s ruling could have resulted in a doctor being afraid to make a decision”. In response, his ministry issued new guidance to hospitals on treating complications in pregnancies.
Two of the doctors who treated Izabela were suspended by the hospital earlier this month pending its own investigation. The woman’s family have also requested that prosecutors investigate the hospital for allegedly falsifying medical records relating to her treatment.
Izabela’s death reignited mass protests against the abortion law, with thousands coming out onto the streets. Opinion polling this month showed that almost three quarters of the public want the law to be softened.
Last week, the Dutch parliament approved plans to provide funding for women from Poland to obtain abortions in the Netherlands. The MP behind the resolution said that Izabela’s death, after she “did not receive the right to a safe abortion”, had motivated the decision.
Main image credit: Martyna Niecko / Agencja Wyborcza.pl
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
