Expectant parents are seeking legal advice over Mater Dei Hospital’s policy of forcibly separating COVID positive mothers from their newborns, protesting it goes against global health advice and tramples on their rights.
Since the start of the pandemic in March, 33 women who tested positive for the virus have been segregated from their babies after birth, following a policy to prevent transmission from mother to child, a health ministry spokesperson told Times of Malta.
“Mothers and neonates were separated until the mother was found to be negative for COVID. Most of these mothers were asymptomatic and rapidly became negative for SARS-CoV-2, so the separation from their neonates was minimal,” she said.
Family lawyer Robert Thake has been contacted by three expectant mothers, one of whom was calling on behalf of a group, for legal advice to contest the Mater Dei protocol.
He said that since the state of emergency had been revoked, the parents had a right “to take all decisions concerning their child.”
“The state cannot interfere with the enjoyment of this right unless such interference is considered to be legal, proportionate, or necessary in a democratic society,” he said.
He explained that since science lends support to parents’ concerns for wanting to keep their baby with them, there was no legal basis for the decision to be taken out of their hands.
However, carrying out legal action was complicated by the particular circumstance women found themselves in, with a client of his deciding last minute to pull the plug on a prohibitory injunction, since among other considerations “she feared drawing the ire of the medical staff.”
The separation policy contradicts World Health Organization guidelines, which clearly advocate for contact between a COVID mother and her child.
Annalisa Debono, who has a background in litigation, said that had she tested positive in August before she gave birth she was prepared to legally contest the right to keep her baby, since science currently points to the benefits outweighing the risks.
She pointed to WHO advice that “children appear to be at low risk of COVID.”
The WHO has also said that “mother and infant should be enabled to remain together” to facilitate skin-to-skin contact which improves “thermoregulation, blood glucose control, and maternal-infant attachment, and decreases the risk in mortality and severe infection among low birth weight infants.”
Unless there is evidence that the child definitely benefits from the separation, parents should be given the choice over whether they want this to happen, Debono said.
The WHO has repeatedly stated the importance of COVID-19 mothers and their newborns maintaining close contact.“I believe that state interference in this matter goes against the EU convention of the right to family life. Unless there is a care order the parents have rights over children, which means that it should be the parents’ decision,” she said.
Last April, a health ministry spokesperson defended the protocol of separating COVID-19 mothers from their newborns, saying it was suited to the local context and in line with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
However, while the CDC recommends the temporary separation of COVID-19 separation of mother and baby, it also gives mothers the choice not to be separated if they decide against this.
“If rooming in is preferred by the mother or unavoidable due to facility limitations, steps to reduce risk are described,” it says.
According to the CDC, “current evidence suggests that the risk of a newborn getting COVID-19 from their mother is low, especially when the mother takes steps (such as wearing a mask and washing her hands) to prevent spread before and during care of the newborn.”
Questions sent to the health ministry on why such a separation policy is in place went unanswered at the time of writing.