The Court of Catania today sentenced in the first degree for manslaughter to one year and two months, with suspended sentence, the head of Cardiac Surgery of the San Vincenzo hospital in Taormina (in agreement with the Bambin Gesù hospital in Rome) Salvatore Agati and the cardiac surgeon of the same Fabrizio Gandolfo hospital, and acquitted another cardiologist Marcello Campisi of the Garibaldi Nesima hospital in Catania.
The doctors were accused of having caused the death of little Luigi Messina, who died after just 10 days. The little boy was born in a twin birth with his sister Ginevra on 4 July 2016 in the Garibaldi Nesima hospital in Catania. The baby was immediately transferred due to respiratory problems to the neonatal intensive care unit, where he was kept for a few days before being extubated. But the child could not resist independently for even twenty-four hours and was intubated again. The doctors realized that the child had an open Botallo ductus arteriosus and decided to proceed with surgical closure: a team arrived from the San Vincenzo hospital in Taormina to operate on Luigi. The little patient’s condition worsened and the newborn died on July 14.
According to the family members, who filed a complaint, the responsibility lies with the heart surgeons who performed the operation poorly and who could also have avoided it by only carrying out pharmacological therapy. The lawyers Antonio Cozza, Giuseppe Ferraro and Carmen Toro defend the parents of little Luigi. Luigi’s parents said today: “After almost eight years we have finally obtained justice for our child, who will now be able to rest in peace. We have carried out a legal battle with sacrifices for Luigino and all the children who are victims of medical malpractice, so that what happened to our son never happens again.”
