record when testifying before the police, and (ii) the director of the San Francisco Gotera
Hospital sent a report on Manuela’s medical record to the prosecutor’s office, in which he
included information on the presumed victim’s sexual and reproductive life. In this regard,
the Commission indicated that the inadequate regulation of medical secrecy in obstetric
emergencies may result in doctors automatically reporting patients for fear of being
sanctioned. On the second point, the Commission pointed out that “there is no record that
the State made a comprehensive diagnosis of the presumed victim following her deprivation
of liberty,” or that it had provided regular and systematic treatment to the presumed victim
before her diagnosis of Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 2009. According to the Commission, these
omissions gave rise to the State’s responsibility for the violation of Manuela’s right to life. In
addition, it considered that “the State violated the right to judicial guarantees and judicial
protection established in Articles 8(1) and 25(1) of the Convention, to the detriment of
Manuela’s family as a result of the total failure to investigate and clarify her death while in
custody and the relationship of this to the omissions established in this section.”
175. The representatives agreed substantially with the Commission’s arguments regarding
the violation of professional secrecy. In addition, they alleged that the State had not provided
Manuela with accessible, acceptable and quality health care services: (i) before the obstetric
emergency; (ii) when she received emergency obstetric care in the San Francisco de Gotera
National Hospital, and (iii) while she was deprived of her liberty in different detention centers.
They argued that, prior to the obstetric emergency, the State had failed to take the following
steps: (1) identify and make an early diagnosis of the “evident symptoms of the Hodgkin’s
lymphoma from which the [presumed] victim suffered,” and (2) provide complete and detailed
information to Manuela about her health situation, which constituted a violation of Article 13
of the Convention. They indicated that when the presumed victim received emergency
obstetric health care in the San Francisco Gotera National Hospital, the State failed to provide
accessible, acceptable and quality emergency obstetric care to Manuela because: (i) the
hospital was outside the geographical scope and financial possibilities of Manuela; (ii) the
doctors gave priority to questioning her rather than to treating the serious condition she was
in; (iii) the medical staff “did not have adequate training or capacity to identify the cause of
the numerous complications that she had suffered and, consequently, reached the conclusion
that she had committed an offense without any technical basis and without making a clinical
investigation of what had happened immediately before the emergency, or of her medical
history,” and (iv) “when they finally began to treat her, they did so erroneously, because they
endangered her health and her life.” The representatives also alleged that the State had failed
to provide a prompt and appropriate diagnosis and treatment while Manuela was deprived of
her liberty, which constituted a violation of Manuela’s right to life, “because the State, through
its agents, was aware of the risk of her death and failed to take any effective measure to
prevent this.” They also argued that the State had not investigated Manuela’s death in
violation of her family’s rights to judicial guarantees and judicial protection.
176. Furthermore, they indicated that Manuela had been subjected to gender-based violence
and discrimination because: (i) Manuela was reported by the doctor who received her in the
San Francisco Gotera National Hospital, who violated her duty to observe professional secrecy
and concluded that Manuela had committed a crime “because she was pregnant as the result
of an ‘infidelity,’ which had led her to abort because she was ashamed,” and (ii) while Manuela
was deprived of liberty, she was not provided with the health care she required; moreover,
the “guards of the San Miguel Prison claimed that her situation was not serious and constituted
a punishment for her criminal and promiscuous conduct.” According to the representatives,
this discrimination was intersectional. Additionally, they argued that the State had subjected
Manuela to torture when she was handcuffed during her obstetric emergency in the San
Francisco de Gotera Hospital and while she was in the terminal stage of her illness in the
Rosales National Hospital.
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