Georgian clinic discriminating against fathers, ombudsman says

Ombudsman Ucha Nanuashvili. (Interpressnews.)

TBILISI, DFWatch–Georgia’s ombudsman has called attention to discrimination against fathers at the Children’s Infectious Diseases Clinical Hospital.

Fathers are not allowed to stay at the clinic at night to supervise their kids.

The ombudsman Wednesday described a complaint his office received a few months ago. In the letter, someone tells how he wanted to be with child overnight at the hospital on April 24, but representative of the department of respiratory viral infections refused, saying that only mothers or grandmothers are allowed as supervisors, not men.

The categorical rejection was justified by an argument that men may come there drunk. If the child’s mother cannot stay, another female may come instead, but not a man.

This is not an isolated case, but illustrates that the hostpital has a wrong practice toward men when it denies them the right to stay with their children, the ombudsman wrote in a statement.

He underlines that such stereotypes restrict men from fulfilling their roles as fathers and take their equal share of the parental burden.

“The Public Defender determines that Tbilisi’s Children’s Infectious Diseases Clinical Hospital committed clear discrimination of a citizen due to his sex,” the statement reads.

Do not reduce the role of the father in child rearing, he writes.