The NAS (Anti-Adulteration and Health Units) discovered an illegal facility in Civezzano, Treviso, that allowed births without authorization. The aim of the “La via di casa” center was to monitor patients before, during and after childbirth. Too bad that, according to what the investigators have reconstructed, the association did not have any health authorization to operate. But it had been active for at least three years and the army will now try to understand how many births took place inside the facility where the two midwives currently under investigation worked. The professionals were charged an average price of one thousand euros, a cost that would then be reimbursed by the health company. In Trentino, however, maternity wards are not authorized and there is no legislation regulating these places.
The investigations
The investigation began a few months ago after a mother was admitted to the Santa Chiara hospital in Trento due to a haemorrhage. During her delivery at the maternity ward in Civezzano, there was a complication that forced her to go to hospital. The woman suffered no consequences, but the emergency hospitalisation led to a report to the public prosecutor's office. The seizure then took place. As he writes MailThe police investigation revealed that the birthing center also had a website offering alternative medicine treatments.
The defense
The investigations are still ongoing. The midwives' lawyer, Francesca Pastore, has already clarified her line of defense: “The problem is not the maternity ward, they are free professional midwives and therefore I can follow the births at home or elsewhere. The maternity ward is a promotional association that carries out various activities and a room, as if it were a home, is dedicated to childbirth. According to the prosecution, they must be authorized, but they are not health facilities.” Pastore also emphasizes that there was no health risk: “It is as if they were giving birth at home and the Province reimburses home births, in some regions they are regulated, in our opinion this cannot be criminally relevant.” He therefore opens a dialogue with the investigating judge “to ask if the structure can be recovered to carry out the other activities, for the parties that we will fight in the courtroom.” Even the midwives indicted for managing births outside the hospital without authorization base their defense on regulatory uncertainty: “We find ourselves victims of prejudice. We will seek dialogue with the judicial authorities in order to continue providing a service provided peacefully in most other regions.
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