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Doctors Put Baby in Freezer
The two medics from the central Bulgarian town of Gorna Oryahovitsa have been arrested by anti-Mafia officers


Medical doctors have been arrested for freezing a newborn. Dr. Stefan Lazarov and Dr. Mihail Milatovich from the town of Gorna Oryahovitsa in central Bulgaria were arrested by anti-Mafia officers last night on allegations being responsible for the death of a newborn. A seventeen year-old pregnant girl was admitted to the hospital on November 28, 2010 with premature labor symptoms. After the delivery Dr. Lazarov told the young mother the baby was stillborn. However, the newborn proved to be alive and the panic-stricken doctor called his colleague on his mobile phone and asked him how he could get rid of the infant. The phone conversation between the two was tapped by anti-Mafia officers who were carrying an investigation against the hospital's director and the mayor of Gorna Oryahovitsa. The girl was 29 weeks pregnant from her Roma boyfriend but had been keeping it secret from her family and classmates.

4 Bulgarian Doctors Face Murder Charges over Baby Death

The municipal council in Bulgaria's central town of Gorna Oryahovitsa is meeting Monday with one single item on the agenda – to decide on the dismissal of the director of the local hospital – Mirolyub Kozhuharov.

Also on Monday, the Prosecutor's Office is expected to press charges against four of the same hospital's doctors. They were arrested on November 30, 2010, after a 17-year-old girl gave premature birth to a baby that died the next day. The doctors are accused of premeditated murder of the newborn.

Meanwhile, the Bulgarian daily "
Trud"
(Labor) reports an ultrasound picture taken right before the premature birth shows the baby did not have a heartbeat. The information has been confirmed by two different sources – from the hospital and the police.

The picture has been given to the prosecutor along with a report where one of the doctors has written – "
the baby is dead inside the uterus and must be removed in order to save the mother's live."


The investigation, however, believes the picture has been manipulated.

Meanwhile, Kozhuharov is cited by the daily "
24 Chassa"
insisting the baby died inside the girl's womb and the probe will confirm it. He stated that the baby was not the real problem and the hospital staff was haunted over plans to destroy the facility and take over its property in a prime location of the town.

The Bulgarian Doctor's Union announced they will conduct their own investigation of the case and appealed to the media to not make rushed conclusion before the probe is over.

Bulgaria in Shock as 4 Doctors Suspected of Killing Baby

The Bulgarian public has been shock and the Interior Ministry and the Doctors' Union have been tangled in an embarrassing dispute over the suspicions that four doctors might have killed deliberately a prematurely-born baby.

The story unravelled over the week after on the initial arrest of the four doctors from the hospital in the town of Gorna Oryahovitsa on November 30, 2010, after the previous day a 17-year-old girl prematurely gave birth to a baby that died the next day.

After the birth, the doctors allegedly told the mother that the baby was still-born;
however, an employee of the hospital saw the baby moving in another part of the ward. The mother grew suspicious of the doctors and called the police, who, in addition to eventually arresting the four doctors – interrogated a total of 16 people from the hospital staff.

As a result of the arrests, the Bulgarian Doctors' Union and the medical community in the country rose up in protest against the "
police state"
measures slamming the Interior Ministry for assuming the role to decide when a baby is still-born. All Bulgarian MPs who are doctors, with the exception of those from the ruling party GERB, issued a protest statement against the actions of the police claiming there are no grounds to investigate their colleagues.

The four detainees, the head of maternity ward, Dimitar Sotirov, the gynaecologists Stefan Lazarov and Mihail Milatovich, and paediatrician Katya Getsova, claimed that their arrests were outrageous as the foetus had no chances of survival. They claimed the young mother had been hiding her pregnancy from her parents and that it was not her who called the police on them. The doctors were released on Thursday, December 2, 2010, as the prosecutors could not find definitive evidence of a crime.

A huge scandal erupted on Friday when Interior Minister Tsvetanov and prosecutors from the Veliko Tarnovo District investigating the case in Gorna Oryahovitsa, released tapes of conversations between the doctors that indicated that the doctors were aware of the fact that the prematurely-born baby was alive but did nothing to try to save its life.

According to Tsvetanov, the conversations show that the baby was "
deliberately murdered."
He explained the tapes have been declassified and released in response to the negative public reaction to the arrests. It turned out that the police had been spying upon some of the doctors involved in the case because of suspicions of financial crimes against Mirolyub Kozhuharov, the head of the hospital in Gorna Oryahovitsa.

The tapes do not provide clear-cut information but do show that the doctors panicked from the fact that the foetus did show signs of life, and that they did not know what to do with it;
they also indicate that the baby eventually "
died on its own, without interference."


A matter of dispute is the exact age of the foetus – the doctors claim the baby was born in the 21st week of pregnancy, and weighed less than 600 g., while the investigators claim that the birth occurred in the 23rd week, which qualified the baby as a human being.

A conversation of the hospital director and another man shows that Stefan Lazarov who delivered the baby told the mother that it was still-born, and that the mother did not want the baby but that it was actually still alive.

In his conversation with the other person, Kozhuharov reproaches Lazarov for not doing anything to try to save the baby for many hours.

"
Now it turns out that we all together killed the baby on purpose. We are not in a trap from which there is no escape,"
the head of the hospital is taped as saying.

They mention that they should give BGN 900-1000 to a woman to guarantee that she will keep quite but it does not become clear if they mean the mother.

A taped conversation from the following day demonstrates that the doctors are already aware of their role as accomplices and that they could face charges.

The hospital head asks one of the doctors if the baby is still alive, and the doctor says he has to check.

One of them utters the words that they should throw it in a bucket, while the other one says, "
How can a person kill it? You cannot kill it. How can you?"
"
Snezhana put it in the freezer and Ginka took it out,"
goes one of the lines, apparently referring to the corpse of the baby and female members of the medical staff. The two agree to present the case as an abortion, with a still-born baby.

Eventually, the hospital director orders the gynaecologist to check if the baby weighs less than 600 g. and to put the corpse in the freezer for biological waste. The third tape conversation is from the same day.

"
This thing went together with Andrey Batashov, it died,"
says a doctor to the director, which appears to be a rather cynical apparently referring to the death the previous day of popular Bulgarian actor Andrey Batashov.

"
Did it die on its own,"
asks hospital director Kozhuharov.

"
Of course, it did on its own, we wouldn't meddle,"
says the doctor.

"
It just didn't exist, nobody heard or saw,"
concludes Kozhuharov.

"
An alive baby was killed deliberately, and it was not given a chance,"
commented Interior Minister Tsvetanov.

Upon the release of the tapes, Kozhuharov and the other doctors stick to their version that the baby was still-born, and that its movement was not a sign of life but instinctive reactions and convulsions.

"
If I knew I had been taped, I would not speak this way. This is how we talk, I wouldn't ask my colleague on the phone if the baby has fibrillations,"
Kozhuharov explained. He claims that Lazarov, who delivered it, saw that the foetus had no heartbeat while it was still in the uterus. He and the other doctors claim that the baby was born in the 20-21st week, with no heartbeat, and was not a living baby.

Bulgaria's Health Minister Stefan Konstantinov, who is a gynaecologist himself, said that he was ashamed of the entire case. The information provided by the Interior Minister suggests that the baby weighed more than 600 g and was born in the 23rd week.

"
Since they mention that it was breathing, what else is there to comment on? Even it was an abortion, and even though such children hardly survive long, is that the kind of human behaviour that one needs to demonstrate? We are not even talking about medical ethics here, this is about something different,"
Konstantinov said.

The case is under investigation by both the state authorities and the Bulgarian Doctors' Union

Willowsend comment:- I hope justice is seen to be done, and the times I have said that over the last few years in Bulgaria
This whole thing just makes me feel sick and is all very sad. The fact that the 17 year old is a Roma should not have any bearing on life and death

I think somehow some of these will get away with it and why just because the call was recorded would Kozhuharov have asked in a different way? surely this child deserved the best at all times regardless of its background, I only hope that one day when they meet their maker they have a good answer to the questions that will be asked by god himself, I'm not a religious person but at some point we all have to be accountable .

Forensic report says the baby from Gorna Oryahovitsa was born dead

The seven-month baby born prematurely in a Gorna Oryahovitsa hospital was delivered dead and the doctors are not to blame for the infant's death, Bulgarian National Radio reported on December 21 2010.

The municipal prosecution in Veliko Turnovo received the expertise report from the forensic medical experts' team in Sofia who were entrusted with the case. The autopsy and investigation was conducted in the capital, following the allegations that four medics in Gorna Oryahovitsa were involved in the baby's death.

The medics, from Saint Ivan Rilski hospital, were arrested on suspicion of killing a baby born prematurely on December 1, but were released from custody the following day.

According to Roumiana Irmanova, spokesperson for the Veliko Turnovo prosecution office, it is still currently unclear if charges against the four medics will be pressed. The conclusions of the Sofia-based experts divulge sharply with data recorded by police surveillance teams from the telephone conversations, in which allegedly, a doctors was seeking the advice of his colleagues as to "
how to get rid of the corpse"
. Further testimonies and evidence of malpractice were revealed in the media in the days following the baby's death.

News of the death came on December 1, when it was reported that a student in her seventh month of pregnancy had been admitted to a Gorna Oryahovitsa hospital after experiencing complications. Upon the initial exam, however, the doctor told her that her baby was dead, but the mother has insisted that the baby was alive.

According to police, the doctor then "
panicked at the revelation and rang a fellow doctor and a friend to discuss ways in which to get rid of it"
.

Police were already eavesdropping on his telephone conversations because he was under a separate investigation – details of which have not been revealed.

Ivan Kostov and Martin Dimitrov from the Blue Coalition requested that the forensic report on the case be disclosed to the public immediately in detail and for the examination results to be announced personally by Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov.

Interior Minister Tsvetanov was himself very sceptical of the report, saying that it had generated more questions than answers.

[size=55:c3fs6wsu]novinite 23 December 2010

Bulgarian Expert on Baby Death: No Pressure, Baby Was Dead

We have solid proofs that the baby was born dead, said Stanislav Hristov, who participated in the preparation of the expert opinion on the death of the prematurely-born baby from the town of Gorna Oryahovitsa.

“The girl has been hiding her pregnancy for a long time and there was only one registered examination of her,” Hristov said Thursday in an interview for the Bulgarian private TV channel bTV.

He has explained that there have been changes in the amniotic fluid as a result of inflammation of the placenta. In his words, when the 17-year-old girl arrived in the hospital in an emergency, she already had dilation. She was taken to the delivery room where she gave birth very fast.

According to the standards, adopted in August, the foetus should be more than 600 grams and with certain height. However, according to Hristov, the prematurely-born baby had no chance for survival.

“We firmly prove that the baby was drowning in the amniotic fluid before being born. Ventilation was performed by a paediatrician right after it was born,” the expert said.

He added that the baby did not respond to these actions and was regarded as dead. It was then put in a room, where the nurse saw it move in the morning.

Hristov has explained that an embryo goes through various stages in its development and it repeats a person’s evolutionary development. In his words, in each of these stages it gains weight and height, but they are not necessarily indicators of its maturity.

According to the expert, the nervous system does not always correspond to the weight and height of the foetus.

“There are such cases, which are described in the world literature. In this case, the brain death occurred in the mother’s womb. Spinal impulses begin. The less developed the foetus is, the more pronounced they are. Most often, these are respiratory movements or twitching of the limbs that mimic life,” Hristov said.

In his words, then the doctors have begun discussing the case on the phone and the authorities have decided that they were killing the baby.

“There was no pressure on the experts who performed the expert opinion. There were doubts that we delayed the report. Yes, we delayed it with a couple of days, but only because it was 40 pages long,” Hristov said.

His statement was regarding the accusations of the Bulgarian right-wing Blue Coalition, whose leader, Ivan Kostov, said that the publishing of the information, exonerating the doctors from the hospital in the central town of Gorna Oryahovitsa, was delayed on purpose with the hope it would remain largely unnoticed over the Holidays.

Four doctors were arrested November 30 on suspicions that they left a prematurely-born baby to die without helping it, and the scandal grew enormously as the police released tapes of conversations between the hospital head and some of the doctors, in which they use very cynical language with respect to the baby's fate and make it clear they are aware they could face charges over its death.

Had to comment on this as I personnaly know two of the doctors invovled in this and I think that the paper has a lot to answer for in condeming doctors before the facts were put in place and also a shame that Bulgaria has now decided to try to use the media in its corruption attempts.

I'm just glad that those that started this horrid horrid piece of "
c..."
didn't succeed or an excellent hospital would fall at the hands of corruption.

The attempts to illegally close this hospital has been going on for years and I'm sure that this will not be the last time that a smear attempt is made... If you look at the record of this hospital in relation the VT, I think your find that if there are doctors that need to be hung it is there, as the death rate on the wards for new borns is high.

Good post seven and its also good to hear that this was not the fault of the doctors but what a pity the newspapers go to such extremes to sell their paper

I don't really want this thread to get going again, but just thought that I would pop this link on....

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] ... olicy.html

[size=55:13ed3f3r]novinite

'Notorious' Bulgarian Medics Face Infant Death Trial

The three Bulgarian medics who received wide publicity courtesy of the country's Interior Minister, Tsvetan Tsvetanov, have been involved in a new scandal concerning a baby's death.

Doctors Dimitar Sotirov and Stefan Lazarov, as well as pediatrician Katya Getsova, all from the city of Gorna Oryahovitsa, face charges for negligence which may have caused the death of a 39 year-old woman's baby back in 2009. The case concerns their inadequate reaction after a pre-term birth, medical experts claim.

The accused are three of the doctors were arrested November 30 2010 on suspicions that they left another prematurely born baby to die without helping it, and the scandal grew enormously as the police released tapes of conversations between the hospital head and some of the doctors, in which they use very cynical language with respect to the baby's fate and make it clear they are aware they could face charges over its death.

Interior Minister, Tsvetan Tsvetanov, read out loud parts of the taped conversations in the Parliament in December which lead to negative reactions, since he did that without any guilt having been proven.

If the medics are found guilty in the new case, they may serve a 5-year sentence.

I'll let you know what he has to say as one of those doctors will be delivering my next baby in July and I still stand by the fact that they have been trying and keep trying to discredit the hospital to get the land.