In the midst of the pandemic, Antonia Abbatangelo, 41 years old, mother of a one-year-old child, showed up in the emergency room in Trani in serious conditions. After a back and forth between the emergency room and the emergency medical service, the doctors underestimated her condition which led to her death. Thus the two white coats are accused, jointly, of manslaughter.
THE FACTS. On November 12, 2020, in the middle of the pandemic, when Antonia Abbatangelo, 41 years old, from Trani, was taken to the emergency room. The 118 ambulances, due to the health emergency, are not available. The emergency room doctor, faced with the patient’s condition, which presents with a lack of oxygen in the blood, suspects a Covid infection and sends her lady, without examining her, on medical alert. Here the doctor on duty, accused, tells the family members, directly on the intercom, also in this case skipping the visit, to go to the emergency room. Abbatangelo returns home. A few days later, on November 19, she lost her life at the Dimiccoli hospital in Barletta due to “acute respiratory distress syndrome caused by Covid-19 in a patient with third degree obesity resulting in irreversible heart failure”.
According to the prosecutor Giovanni Lucio Vaira, the doctors would have refused an act of their office which we read in the documents “for reasons of hygiene and health, had to be carried out without delay”. According to the prosecutor, by refusing “any treatment or diagnosis and therefore slowing down the woman’s diagnostic-therapeutic process”, the doctors caused Mrs. Abbatangelo’s death. Whose five injured relatives are assisted by the lawyer Giorgia Di Savino who, previously, had opposed the request for dismissal formulated by the prosecutor’s office, leading the investigating judge of Trani, Marina Chiddo, to prepare the forced indictment. After her death, the local health authority launched internal investigations while the initial file of suspects included 18 health workers. Only the two doctors are on trial now.
