THE HIGH Court has reserved judgment on a challenge to the legality of the 11-month detention in a Cork hospital of a South African woman who refuses to accept treatment for a suspected strain of drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB).
Lawyers for the woman have asked the High Court to order her release on the grounds that her detention is in breach of the right to liberty provisions of Article 40 of the Constitution. The case was brought against the HSE and the hospital, with the Attorney General and the Human Rights Commissioner later joined by order of the High Court.
After hearing submissions from all parties, Mr Justice John Edwards yesterday reserved judgment and said he hoped to give his decision next Monday.
The woman, a mother of two, arrived here in 2001 and became ill towards the end of 2006 when she was initially treated as an in-patient and then an out-patient by the hospital where she is now detained. She refused treatment for suspected TB.
She was detained at the hospital after refusing to allow doctors to diagnose what type of TB she has or to allow her to be treated.