The last chapter of a sad story. The story of a pensioner killed by a bacterium. From a microscopic “killer” hidden in the folds of a bag of blood liquid. Cesare Ruffolo – that was his name – was only guilty, on 3 July 2013, of having subjected himself to a banal blood transfusion in the Annunziata hospital in Cosenza. The package containing the blood came from the collection center of San Giovanni in Fiore and was contaminated with a bacterium that gave the 79-year-old patient no escape.
Now, 11 years later, a substantial expert report was filed before the Court of Catanzaro, where yet another civil proceeding is being celebrated, the sixth, in which the Ruffolo family through the lawyer. Massimiliano Coppa, together with the lawyers Luigi Forciniti, Giovanni Ferrari and Marco Amantea, has sued the Annunziata Hospital, the Ministry of Health, the ASP of Cosenza for an amount of 13 million euros for violation of the position of guarantee deriving from managerial roles.
The civil court of the regional capital has appointed Prof. Isabella Aquila, Associate of Forensic Medicine of the University of Catanzaro and Prof. Carlo Torti, Full Professor of Infectious Diseases at the “Magna Graecia” University, who over the legitimate objections of the expert panel of the Ruffolo Family composed by prof. Vincenzo Pascali, Professor of Forensic Medicine of the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart of Rome – and the doctor Berardo Silvio Cavalcanti, concluded by stating that: «the serratia marcescens bacterium contained in the bag transfused to the patient Ruffolo presented all the characteristics of pathogenicity by itself only sufficient and necessary to cause death. The responsibilities found are to be considered in reprehensible terms of negligence on the part of the healthcare facility and the department responsible for monitoring blood products and this liability can certainly be attributed to the inefficiency of the healthcare facility and the bodies responsible for supervising the chain of custody of the bag. It can therefore be stated that in the context of haemovigilance the Guidelines regarding the chain of custody and surveillance regarding possible contamination were not respected. For this reason it is clear to hypothesize that if there had not been the serious infection in question, Mr. Ruffolo would not have died. This infection could be avoided through the application of correct blood bag surveillance measures as part of correct haemovigilance.
Read the complete article in the paper edition of Gazzetta del Sud – Cosenza
