“According to the estimate of the Czech Helsinki Committee, under whose banner we are doing this campaign, up to 50% of Czech hospitals limit the presence of parents or other caregivers,” said Bučinská Němečková.
“It does not only apply to parents, the child’s right to the continuous presence of a legal representative and other caring persons also applies, of course, to foster parents or welfare parents, for example in the case of same-sex couples, or actually to anyone whom the child considers a close person, this means that even for a babysitter, of course it needs to be supplemented with some kind of parental consent,” Bučinská explained that the child has the right to the continuous presence of a legal representative or other persons to whom the child was entrusted. Section 28 of the Act on Health Services and the clarifying decree of the Ministry of Health refer to this.
“Parents often don’t know about it, that’s why we try to inform them about it, because then they turn to us, saying that if they had known they could be there, they would have stayed in the hospital, they would have talked more about it, they would have argued, and they would have tried harder not to throw them away from the child,” she described the experiences of some caregivers.
Bučinská drew attention to cases where the rights of parents or caregivers are not respected. “It’s interesting that if you look in some hospitals, in one department it works and in one department it simply does not exist,” she pointed out and recalled the situation of a well-known Czech influencer: “For example, Tereza in Oslo, Tereza Salte about a year and a half ago encountered the fact that in a university hospital they were throwing away her one-and-a-half-year-old oncologically ill son.”
According to Bučinská, many parents at the moment when doctors or health professionals heal, cure or save a child, “so they don’t have the strength to fight them, so to speak. And that’s also why many parents don’t want to file complaints, don’t want to deal with it, don’t want to mediate their story.”
According to Bučinská, the most common argument of health professionals is: “Because simply because, it’s not possible here.” In her opinion, one of the other reasons is the fear of parents’ presence in the hospital.
