Absurd court decision orders Hungarian mother in coma to pay child support
A Hungarian woman has been in a coma for 8 years. A few months ago, her ex-husband sued her for not paying child support.
The story
As Blikk reported in August 2021, Katalin Varga has been in a coma for eight years. After an operation to remove a benign brain tumour, a bacteria attacked her body, and she went into a vegetative state. What is more, the hospital where she contracted the bacteria did not even treat her with antibiotics for a whole week.
Her 59-year-old mother, Éva Kistaj, has been caring for Katalin ever since she took her home from the hospital.
Katalin has two children whom their father took in after the tragedy. Since then, he has not even brought the siblings to the grandparents to visit, and he will not let them see their mother at all.
“In the first three years, my daughter used to look at the door and cry a lot when her children were mentioned, or when she heard their voices in old videos,”
cried the broken grandmother.
Katalin is able to sense everything: she can hear, see, and feel. But she cannot move freely. She is awake, communicates by blinking, can close her mouth on demand, and follows movements with her eyes. Her mother is with her 24/7 and helps her with everything.
If all this was not bad enough, her ex-husband sued Katalin for child support. The children’s father has also initiated an enforcement action against the grandmother, claiming money from her for the maintenance of blood relatives. The grandmother and the mother have accumulated debts of more than HUF 400,000 (EUR 1,123) and can be visited by the debt collector at any moment.
Updates on the story
Now, on January 20, atv.hu reported that Katalin can now move her arms and legs and even smile. However, there is still a long road to recovery. The accumulated debts of her and her mother are now HUF 600,000 (EUR 1,685) which they should pay to the debt collector. But there is no money to pay all that. Every forint is needed to keep the mother of two alive and to rehabilitate her.
Even though her father did not let her see her mother, Eszter, the daughter of Katalin, has been visiting her mother quite frequently since she turned 18 years old. Perhaps it is thanks to her visits that her mother’s condition is rapidly improving.
“A few days ago, the doctor noticed that my daughter can smile now. She moves her limbs to music and responds positively to exercise. To others, these may seem like small victories, everyday miracles, but they are important for Kata’s recovery,”
says the grandmother.
“I thank God every day that my beautiful daughter is alive. Sometimes strangers come to me to help, some with a prayer, others with a conversation. I get a lot of faith and love from them.”
