Top euro court orders Turkey to pay 35,000 euros over medical negligence

STRASBOURG

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on Oct. 23 ordered Turkey to pay 35,000 euros in non-pecuniary damages to six applicants concerning three separate medical negligence cases.

One of the cases was filed by a married Turkish couple who applied to the court after their daughter, born in 1993, started suffering from a disorder known as “foot drop,” allegedly the result of a wrong medication injection at a local dispensary in the eastern province of Ağrı in 2000.

Nusret Alkan and his wife Besrayi Alkan filed criminal proceedings against the doctor and nurse who allegedly were involved in their daughter Elvan’s permanent disability — assessed to be at 28 percent — with local courts, but despite their appeals, the two health officials were acquitted of the charges.

The ECHR on Oct. 23 ruled that Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which provides a right to respect for one’s “private and family life, his home and his correspondence,” had been violated and ordered that the applicants be paid 7,500 euros in non-pecuniary damages together.

Another case concerns Erkan Birol Kaya who had his leg amputated following a car accident in the southern Turkish province of Antalya. Kaya brought a civil actions case for compensation with a local court, claiming that the doctors had undertaken wrong operations which damaged his leg to an irreparable point that it had to be amputated. But his demand was rejected.

Again, in a ruling on Oct. 23, the ECHR ruled that Kaya be compensated 7,500 euros in non-pecuniary damages over the violation of Article 8.

The third case concerns the married couple Mehmet Emin Bilinmiş and Perihan Bilinmiş who lost one of their twin babies in 2008 after a hospital-acquired infection.

The Bilinmiş family lodged a criminal complaint against the medical staff, but as the health ministry officials were unable to identify the exact source of the contamination, no criminal proceedings were instituted.

The ECHR in a ruling on Oct. 23 ruled that the Bilinmiş family gets compensated 20,000 euros in non-pecuniary damages over the violation of Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which says “everyone’s right to life shall be protected by law.”