Human Rights and Child Birth: A Case Study of Providing a Maternity Care in Czechia during the Covid-19 Crisis
Abstract
The case study analyses Covid-19 restrictions regulating the provision of maternity care in Czechia in 2020 and 2021. It takes into account not only the measures adopted by the Ministry of Health and the Government, but also their implementation by healthcare providers.
The study analyses: 1) a third person's presence at child birth, 2) the father's visit to his new-born child, 3) a visit to the hospitalised mother for the purpose of breastfeeding of her other child, 4) the presence of the parent during the new-born baby medical examination. The case study found not only that the adopted measures lack any explanation but also that they infringe the core of the human rights in hand.
Moreover, healthcare providers often restricted the human rights beyond, or in conflict with, the measures adopted by the Ministry of Health or the Government, ignoring both any effect this had on the patients and other third persons and the very essential values of the democratic state respecting the rule of law.