Women in labor or giving birth in Romania will have the right to be accompanied, throughout the entire duration of the birthing process, by a person of their choice, according to a legislative draft adopted by the Romanian Senate and en route to the Chamber of Deputies for the final vote.
The right to an accompanying person in the delivery room is recognized and regulated in numerous European countries, including the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Portugal.
The same bill will also require hospitals to ensure adequate visual and auditory separation in the spaces where labor takes place to protect the privacy of the patient and other patients in the same facility.
The initiators of the bill point out that the legislation currently in force in Romania regulates the right to privacy, but does not contain any specific provision regarding the conditions in which labor and childbirth take place.
“The absence of an explicit regulatory framework generates, in practice, a paradoxical situation: healthcare units specializing in maternity care may impose, through internal regulations, absolute restrictions regarding the presence of an accompanying person and may conduct labor in shared rooms, without adequate auditory or visual separation, without these practices being subject to a proportionality test in relation to the patient’s fundamental rights,” the authors of the draft stated, according to Profit.ro.
The new bill introduces explicit, proportionate guarantees compatible with the organization of medical activity, in accordance with European standards and the recommendations of the World Health Organization, initiators said. It also introduces new articles into the Patient Rights Law, establishing both the right to an accompanying person and the right to privacy.
In hospitals where the existing configuration does not allow separation, the healthcare unit is required to ensure alternative measures for protecting privacy, documented and integrated into the care plan.
“The pregnant woman has the right to be accompanied, upon request, by a person chosen by her, throughout labor, childbirth, and intra-institutional transfer,” the draft adopted by senators stated. Restriction of the aforementioned right will only be permitted exceptionally, in objective situations, medically or epidemiologically justified, when the presence of the accompanying person may affect the safety of the pregnant woman, the newborn, medical staff, or other pregnant women in the healthcare facility.
The draft also provides that the newborn has the right, immediately after birth, as well as throughout hospitalization in the healthcare facility, to remain together with their mother and not be separated from her, except in situations justified by medical, epidemiological, safety, or force majeure reasons, recorded in medical documents.
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