Nine months pregnant, student Greice Kely de Souza arrived on the morning of January 2, 2018 at the Poços de Caldas Hospital, in the homonymous mining town, feeling bad — she had a headache and blurred vision. At the age of 25, she was expecting a girl, Manoela. She would be a mother for the first time, as well as the child’s father, the mechanic João Gabriel da Silva, at the time 24 years old.
The pregnant woman had symptoms of pre-eclampsia, a type of hypertension in pregnancy, but during the care she suffered two seizures. The baby was born without vital signs, went to the ICU, but died the next day.
While Greice struggled to be seen, her partner went through another ordeal, being forced by the hospital to pay a deposit of R$ 18,800 (R$ 10,000 in cash), under the allegation that the patient had not fulfilled the grace period insurer.
The health plan, taken out by the couple five and a half months before the episode, was from the insurer Climepe, owner of the hospital and later bought by Notredame Intermédica. The contract, however, removed the grace period in urgent and emergency cases like that one. The collection of collateral, moreover, is a practice classified as a crime in the Penal Code.
The couple sued the health plan, arguing that Greice was the victim of negligence, did not receive adequate medical care – she received an underdose of the medicine that could have prevented the second seizure -, and that the hospital improperly charged the deposit.
In a decision on the 31st of May, Judge Carlos Alberto Pereira da Silva, of the 4th Civil Court of the Judicial District of Poços de Caldas, accepted the couple’s request and condemned Notredame Intermédica to compensate them in R$ 250 thousand —the amount in full requested in the action—, in addition to refunding them, with correction, of the BRL 18,800 paid as security.
In the sentence, the magistrate wrote “that the situation caused distress, anxiety and abnormal frustrations, embarrassment, strong feelings of being wronged, causing damage to the intimate sphere of the perpetrators and emotional and psychological shocks, with fair compensation” of R$ 250 thousand, “because it is a reasonable amount and proportional to the injury caused, although it cannot return the life of the child”.
The couple said the sentence brought a “sense of justice, relief and hope”.
“It is a pain impossible to describe the loss of our daughter, an unparalleled sadness having to remember all the suffering we went through and will feel for the rest of our lives,” they said in a joint statement.
Greice and João Gabriel said they filed the lawsuit so that their daughter’s death “does not happen in vain, to do justice for us and for all parents who suffer in some way from the neglect and coldness of these health plans.”
The lawyer who represented them, Augusto de Paula Barbosa, specialized in consumer law and former consultant member of the Special Commission for Consumer Protection of the Federal Council of the OAB, stated that he had never seen in his 16-year career “the appreciation of the ” as in this case.
“It renewed my spirit with advocacy. In Brazil there is a systematic disrespect for consumer protection legislation, because it is profitable to violate the law”. Barbosa drew attention to the fact that the defendant did not even suggest an agreement. “The rule in Brazil is: the bigger the company, the smaller the chance of an agreement.”
Notredame Intermédica will appeal the decision. In a note, he informed “that he is available to the family for clarifications”. “However, as the case in question is in court, the company does not comment on ongoing lawsuits.”
