OfBergamo editorial team
After the dismissals of the Court of Ministers, in Bergamo there were six charges left for the culpable epidemic, the dead employees, the fakes. Four suspects remained, including the then general manager of Alzano Locati and the general manager of Ats Giupponi
The path, on the central accusation, was already traced. After the archiving of the most substantial lines of the investigation on the first phase of the Covid pandemic of 2020even the relatively minor ones go in the same direction. The Bergamo Prosecutor’s Officewith the deputy prosecutor Maria Cristina Rota who led the pool of prosecutors in the investigation, asked for it to be dismissed for the six charges that remained in Bergamo. Those about the Alzano hospital and the fakes, including those from the ATS.
«Unfounded hypothesis»
The heart of the investigation, with the involvement of the then prime minister Giuseppe Conte and the Minister of Health Roberto Speranzabut also the part relating to the Region with the president Attilio Fontana and the then Welfare Councilor Giulio Gallera, had been forwarded for jurisdiction to the Court of Ministers of Brescia (partly also to Rome). The investigation was closed last June: «Unfounded hypothesis», the judges wrote. At the center, the crime of negligent epidemic, not contemplated as omission.
Notes on the sanitization of the Alzano hospital
So, what is left in Bergamo? Francesco Locati and Roberto Cosentina, the first general director of the Asst Bergamo Est (Alzano hospital, with the emergency room closed on 23 February 2020 and reopened after a few hours) and the second medical director of the same company, ended up under investigation for forgery, among other things . For having (Cosentina) certified in a note to Ats that he had immediately take the necessary measures after the first suspected cases and confirmation of the positive swab test; instead, the Prosecutor’s Office contested that the sanitization of the emergency room and the departments was incomplete. Locati, again according to the initial accusations, in the reports of 8 and 10 April 2020, declared to the General Directorate of Welfare of the Lombardy Region that the Presidium it was sanitized during the brief emergency closure. And that, after the first two suspected cases, swabs were taken from all patients with respiratory symptoms. Locati, meanwhile, was promoted to the directorship of the Papa Giovanni XXIII hospital in Bergamo last December. Covid was an unknown then. Healthcare was caught unprepared. For the fakes, in the end the Prosecutor’s Office concluded that there was no fraud.
The fatal epidemic at the Alzano hospital and the 35 dead workers
Locati, Cosentina e Giuseppe Marzulli (medical director of the Alzano hospital and responsible for managing health emergencies) ended up under investigation for culpable epidemic. The first two for not checking the availability of gloves, masks, overalls and other protective equipment. For not having subjected patients with respiratory failure to the radiological screening, on February 23, to diagnose Covid in at least 25 patients, since swabs were not yet carried out extensively. And for not having checked whether there was a procedure that indicated differentiated paths and isolation. Marzulli for not having verified the need for protection devices and equipment, and for not having supervised on the use of masks, gloves and gowns. In this way, according to the initial accusations, they caused the infection of 35 healthcare workers and the death of two people. All omissions.
The ATS and the surveillance plan
Massimo Giupponi, general director of the Bergamo ATS (confirmed in December), ended up under investigation for having attested in public documents to facts that did not correspond to the truth. In particular, in the note to the Lombardy Region of 28 May 2020 in response to the question of councilor Niccolò Carretta, having indicated that the trend of hospitalizations was monitored, that the patients arriving at the Alzano emergency room had been transferred to other facilities with the creation of isolation areas for those with suspicious symptoms. And which, from 23 February 2020, was immediately adopted the surveillance procedure; which is not true, according to the Prosecutor’s Office, “since the surveillance plan was activated from 3 March 2020”. Giupponi was also investigated for refusal of official acts, for failing to provide ATS “in real time” with an adequate active surveillance plan until after March 2, 2020.
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May 9, 2024
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