PONTEDERA. Three doctors were sent to trial by the Pavia court following the death of Massimiliano Morelli, a 53-year-old medical informant, occurred a few days after spinal surgery. An operation that seemed perfectly successful. And instead, a week later, when everything seemed to be going well, the news of the tragedy unexpectedly arrived. Too many doubts and questions that needed answers. So much so that the family, in August 2022, turned to the Pavia police and filed a complaint asking to shed light on the causes of death and any responsibilities.
The autopsy ordered by the Prosecutor’s Office ascertained that Morelli was never administered anticoagulant therapy throughout the post-operative period which, as the prosecutor’s consultants write, determined the fatal event in a percentage greater than 80%. It was not an obstacle-free path that led to the indictment and therefore to a trial where the tragedy could be clarified. The prosecutor Diletta Balduzzi initially signed the request for dismissal claiming that certainty of the responsibility of the health workers under investigation had not been achieved.
The request for dismissal was followed by opposition from the offended parties, Francesca and Emanuele Morelli, who noted that the anticoagulant prescription indicated in the therapy sheet by the first surgeon who visited him on the same day of the operation had been deemed necessary and foreseen by the guidelines also indicated by the consultants of the Pavia prosecutor’s office. They also highlighted the brother’s lack of mobilization throughout the post-operative period, i.e. from 25 July to 31 July, the day of his death.
In the WhatsApp messages with his sister, filed as a forensic copy during the opposition to the dismissal request, Massimiliano wrote: “There was a check and they didn’t move me”, “they changed their mind… I have to stay still” “slab done but I didn’t move from the bed.” The anticoagulant in situations like this is the first drug that is prescribed to avoid the risk of embolisms, like the one that caused the death of the 53-year-old.
At the preliminary hearing on March 27, the civil parties concluded by insisting on requesting the indictment. The judge of the preliminary hearing Guglielmo Leo, President of the Court of Pavia, committed the three accused doctors to trial, setting the first hearing for June 28th.
«It’s clear that something didn’t go as it should have. When they called us from the hospital to inform us and we went up to Lombardy, we noticed hasty and unfriendly behavior which did not convince us from the beginning. After the spinal operation to remove hernias there were no complications, my brother was fine. We, also with my other brother Emanuele, want to understand what happened”, he says Francesca Morelli.
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