Turkish court orders doctor to pay child’s expenses until adulthood after failed sterilization surgery

ISTANBUL

The doctor who failed to successfully perform tubal ligation as a means of sterilization on a woman has been ordered to pay all expenses for a child, born after the failed operation, until it reaches adulthood.
 
An Istanbul court fined the gynecologist, who works at a private hospital, 125,000 Turkish Liras, after a baby was born despite the doctor conducting the tubal ligation operation, daily Habertürk reported.

The 37-year-old woman who underwent the operation, identified only by her initials S.İ., went to the doctor in 2008 to have pregnancy examinations conducted while she was pregnant with her second child. She told the doctor that she did not want another child and the doctor recommended that she give birth through a caesarean section, after which he would conduct the tubal ligation operation.

After believing that she had been sterilized due to the operation, the woman later learned that she was pregnant in 2009.

Declining the same doctor’s offer to have an abortion, the woman and her husband entered a lawsuit against him.

The couple’s attorney, Gülnaz Güneş Aykaş, demanded compensation for the baby’s education and nurturing expenses, as the family did not have enough of a family budget to raise a third child.

The attorney for the hospital where the doctor was working, meanwhile, demanded the dismissal of the case on grounds that there was a one in 1,000 probability in medical literature that a patient could become pregnant after a tubal ligation operation. The attorney also added that the mother had refused the abortion offered by the doctor.

However, while in labor with her third child, which was conducted by another doctor, the woman learned that the sued doctor had actually not performed the sterilization.

Forensics decided that he was at fault and ruled for him and his hospital to pay a total of 125,000 liras in compensation to the family. Some 110,000 liras of this sum was material and 15,000 liras of it was for moral indemnities. The amount of the compensation was calculated by taking into consideration the education and nurturing expenses of the child, which is currently five years old, up to its 22nd birthday.