Violation Of The Right To Life Due To Inadequate Health Services
Events
A fire broke out while B.K. and A.K. (brothers), who are the sons of applicants Ali Karakılıç and Songül Karakılıç and the brothers of Cengizhan Karakılıç, were alone at their residence. Firefighters who arrived at the scene extinguished the fire and transported the two brothers, who were in cardiac arrest (respiratory and circulatory failure), to the state hospital. As a result of the CPR performed, the brothers’ heartbeats were restored, and they were transferred to the university medical faculty hospital. Following an evaluation, it was determined that the brothers’ condition was serious and that they needed to be transferred to another center for advanced treatment (hyperbaric oxygen therapy), but no hospital was found that could accept them. The applicants transported their children to a private medical center in another province that did not have an intensive care unit but did have hyperbaric oxygen therapy capabilities. Brother A.K. did not respond to the treatments administered at the medical center and passed away, while B.K. was transferred to different hospitals but also did not respond to the treatment process and lost his life. Following the deaths, an investigation launched by the Ministry of Health concluded that there was no negligence on the part of the medical staff involved in the treatment process or during the transfer. The full-fledged lawsuit filed with the administrative court on the grounds of negligence was dismissed on its merits, and the ruling became final.
Claims
The applicants claimed that the right to life was violated due to the failure to provide the necessary protection during the medical intervention for the children who were injured in the fire and subsequently died.
Court’s Assessment
In the present case, the applicants claimed that their children, who were affected by/poisoned by smoke due to the fire, died as a result of the disruptions in the overall treatment process, and that the health services (from Samsun to Ankara ), resulting in their children not receiving the necessary treatment and being transported between hospitals in ambulances lacking adequate equipment. They filed a full-fledged lawsuit, naming the Ministry of Health as a defendant. In the judicial process, when the expert report requested by the court from the Forensic Medicine Institution was examined, it was seen that the investigation was limited to the healthcare services provided in Samsun and that the assessment was made only from the perspective of A.K. Despite the applicants’ claim that the incident was not sufficiently clarified, the court found the expert report sufficient and based its ruling on it. However, the applicants complained not only about the treatment process limited to Samsun but also about the treatment process extending to Ankara; they complained about the transfer with an ambulance lacking adequate equipment, the failure of the 112 Emergency Service to provide an ambulance, and the refusal of hospitals in Ankara to admit their children. It is understood that the court did not make an assessment regarding the issues raised by the applicants.
In light of all these findings, it has been concluded that, in the context of the state’s positive obligations under the right to life, an investigation was not conducted with the depth, care, and speed required by Article 17 of the Constitution to establish legal liability for the process that resulted in the deaths of the two children, and that, as a result, the state’s positive obligations (procedural obligation) were not fulfilled as required, and that the right to life was violated in this respect.
Since the effective investigation obligation that the state is required to fulfill under the right to life was not fulfilled as required, all the circumstances surrounding the incident could not be clearly established, and therefore it is not possible to determine whether the allegations that were not subject to the court’s assessment (such as the 112 Emergency Service’s failure to provide an ambulance, the refusal of hospitals in Ankara to admit children, etc.) cannot be assessed, in other words, it is not possible to determine whether the requirements of the duty to protect have been fulfilled. In this context, since the Court has not clearly assessed whether the state complied with its duty to protect throughout the entire process, it is not possible at this stage to assess the material (protective) aspect of the right to life.
The Constitutional Court has ruled that the procedural aspect of the right to life has been violated based on the aforementioned reasons.