Violation Of A Person’s Right To Protect And Enhance Their Physical And Mental Well-Being Due To Medical Negligence
The Events
The applicants are the infant (first applicant), who was diagnosed with a congenital condition resulting from the failure of the esophagus to connect to the stomach as of the date of the events, and the infant’s father (second applicant). Because oral feeding was not possible following surgery, the first applicant was administered nutritional fluids intravenously. While the feeding solution was being administered, severe swelling developed in the first applicant’s right hand, leading to another surgery at the same hospital. Ultimately, the first applicant underwent another surgery at a different hospital, during which a skin graft (the transplantation of tissue from one part of the body to another without vascular or nerve connections) was performed.
A full-fledged lawsuit was filed against the Ministry of Health seeking compensation for material and moral damages, alleging medical errors and gross negligence in the postpartum treatment. The Administrative Court dismissed the case based on an expert report stating that the relevant healthcare personnel were not at fault. Upon appeal, the Regional Administrative Court ruled that the damages resulting from the incident must be compensated because the administration had failed to take necessary precautions. However, the court ordered the payment of 50,000 TL in moral damages to the plaintiffs and dismissed the remaining claims.
Subsequently, based on a panel report prepared at a university hospital following a personal application, it was determined that the first applicant had a 51% disability.
Claims
The applicants argued that their right to the protection of their physical and mental well-being had been violated due to the harm they suffered as a result of medical negligence.
The Court’s Assessment
In the specific case, the lower court determined that the necessary precautions had not been taken and that potential harm should have been prevented. Given this situation, it cannot be said that there was no deficiency in the provision of healthcare services.
The decision to award compensatory damages and the method of calculating such damages is a matter of legal interpretation and falls within the discretion of the lower courts. Unless there is a clear error of judgment or arbitrariness, the Constitutional Court cannot intervene in the lower court’s exercise of this discretion. However, given that the first petitioner currently cannot effectively use his right hand and it is unclear when he will be able to use it again, it is possible that he has suffered certain material damages. Furthermore, considering that the service deficiency has been clearly established and in light of certain documents submitted to the case file, it is unclear why the claims for material compensation by the other petitioner—the father of the first petitioner—were rejected.
In this context, considering the lower court’s acceptance and findings that the damage arose as a result of the administration’s failure to take necessary measures, it is clear that accepting only the claim for non-pecuniary damages is insufficient to remedy the consequences of the violation. Indeed, although the lower court identified a fault, it did not conduct a concrete assessment regarding the rejection of the claim for material compensation. Furthermore, it did not adopt an approach that took into account the constitutional requirements regarding the compensation of material damage. Consequently, it was determined that the consequences of the violation were not remedied due to the lower court’s rejection of the applicant’s claims for compensation of material damage. For this reason, it was concluded that, under the specific circumstances of the case, the state had failed to fulfill its positive obligation to protect and promote the individual’s right to the protection and development of their material and moral well-being.
The Constitutional Court ruled that the individual’s right to the protection of their material and moral well-being had been violated, based on the aforementioned grounds.