Published on : 11/05/2022 – 13:04Modified : 11/05/2022 – 13:02
Louga (Senegal) (AFP) – Three midwives were sentenced on Wednesday by a Senegalese court to a six-month suspended prison sentence for “failure to assist a person in danger”, following the death in a public hospital of a pregnant woman who waited in vain for a caesarean section and whose fate tragedy has shaken the country.
Three other midwives, also tried by this high court in Louga (north), were acquitted.
The judgment was pronounced Wednesday morning by the president of the hearing, Ahmet Issa Sall, in the presence of the six defendants and many health workers who came to support their colleagues who were being prosecuted, AFP journalists noted.
The three women with suspended sentences were on duty the night when the death of this pregnant woman, Astou Sokhna, occurred on April 1, said one of their lawyers, Me Abou Abdou Daff, contacted by AFP.
The other three were on duty during the day, said Me Daff, without further details.
According to the Senegalese press, Astou Sokhna, in her thirties, married and nine months pregnant, died in Louga hospital following having waited in great suffering for regarding twenty hours for the caesarean she was asking for.
The staff reportedly refused her request, arguing that her operation was unplanned, and threatened to kick her out if she insisted.
The prosecution had requested a year in prison, including one month once morest four of the six defendants and the release for the other two, during the trial on April 27.
“We do not know the motivation of the court (to condemn the three midwives). We will appreciate to possibly make an appeal”, added Me Daff.
“The defendants have denied and continue to deny the facts (with which they are charged). A medical team has an obligation of means, not of results”, estimated the lawyer.
Four of the six midwives had been imprisoned on April 19 in Louga and the other two released on bail.
This tragedy sparked a wave of indignation on social networks once morest the shortcomings of the public health system and provoked reactions at the highest level of the Senegalese state.
President Macky Sall had issued a message of condolence and instructed to determine who was responsible.
The Minister of Health, Abdoulaye Diouf Sarr, acknowledged on April 14 that the death of this young woman might have been avoided with more vigilance.
The director of the hospital has since been removed and replaced.
© 2022 AFP
