What you should know about the outrageous case of the anesthetist who abused a pregnant woman in Brazil (and shocked the world)

The arrest of a Brazilian anesthetist after being recorded inserting his penis into the mouth of a pregnant woman undergoing a caesarean section has generated a wave of rejection in Brazil, while some of the doctor’s patients suspect that they may have been victims of the same horror.

Thamires Souza Reis da Silva Ribeiro, 23, was treated on July 5 by Giovanni Quintella Bezerra – 32, and already in prison – when she went to the Heloneida Studart Women’s Hospital to give birth to her twins. . One of the babies was born naturally, but with her second baby they had to do an emergency C-section.

In statements to O Globo, the young woman explained that she was sedated so much that she could not witness the birth or get to see her son, who was born prematurely and died the next day. Her family says that when Thamires left the delivery room she had ‘white spots’ on her face, which they now believe could be traces of Giovanni’s semen.

“I realized when she got to the room that she had some stains, I didn’t know what they were. My daughter’s face was sticky and shiny (…) I even thought it was a medicine that had been put on her face», said Thamires’ mother, who was so ‘doped up’ that she only woke up the day after the operation.

Wagner Pena Sarmento, 39 years old and husband of the young woman, said that Bezerra forced him to leave the room. «He did not tell me why (…) I did not argue because I thought it was a normal procedure», he explained.

When they saw the news, they understood that Thamires had been the victim of rape. The family has already filed a complaint.

About the anesthetist: «I had never seen anything like this»

The commissioner in charge of the case, Bárbara Lomba, said she is horrified by what the investigation is revealing. «I had never seen anything like this. I have 21 years of experience in the Police and we are used to atrocities and all kinds of violence», asserted Lomba.

The case was uncovered when the nurses on Bezerra’s team began to distrust the amount of sedative he applied to pregnant women and the way he moved behind the sheet that separated the anesthesiologist from the rest of his colleagues. The anesthesiologist used to ask the women’s partners to leave the delivery room.

They decided to hide a camera in a closet. The recording shows Bezerra, less than a meter from his colleagues, abusing the patient. When finished, he wipes the victim with a handkerchief to hide the tracks.

The anesthetist has been charged with rape of a vulnerable person, a sentence that can range between 8 and 15 years in prison. The Metrópoles media published the moment in which the agents arrested him and took him away in handcuffs.

Police are now investigating whether he abused two other pregnant women he treated the same day he was discovered, or in other procedures he performed during the two months that he had worked at the hospital.

«Vulnerable to all kinds of violence»

The horrifying story has generated a total rejection by Brazilian society in general, but there have been many women who have raised their voices.

«What happened upset me because we are always vulnerable to all kinds of violence, at any time», said Brazilian actress Juliana Paes.

For her part, the judge of the Rio de Janeiro Court of Justice Andrea Pachá said: “It was necessary to install a camera so that the monster could be caught raping a woman anesthetized for cesarean section. Suspicions and complaints without the image would be insufficient and quickly disqualified. How much violence is necessary for an investigation? Disgust!».

“In a women’s hospital, there was no companion during the delivery; in a women’s hospital, a doctor was a rapist; in a women’s hospital, women prepared everything to be able to catch him because the accusations would not have had credibility; in a women’s hospital women are attacked; in a women’s hospital…”, published the writer Andréa Pachá.

The writer Aniella Franco, sister of the assassinated councilor Marielle Franco, pointed out the following: «We cannot be in universities, walk alone at night and we cannot even give birth without our lives and bodies being invaded».