A doctor was sentenced to a suspended prison sentence after the death of a patient. The victim’s family will receive 350,000 euros

A female doctor, who years ago worked at one of the largest private hospitals in the capital, was sentenced to two years in prison with suspension, after the death of a patient.

He had treated her during an allergic attack, and the woman died soon after. The doctor is obliged to pay the patient’s daughter and mother moral damages of 350,000 euros jointly with the hospital and two insurance companies.

The representatives of the health unit said that they were surprised by the decision, because the forensic doctors’ opinions were in their favor, and the prosecutors would also have asked for acquittal.

An intravenous treatment after an allergic reaction to a fast food menu. That would have ended the days of a 32-year-old woman from Bucharest who arrived on her feet at the emergency room of the Sanador hospital in Bucharest and died a few hours later. It happened in the summer of 2014, and the fault for the malpractice was assigned by the court to a female doctor who was on duty.

Ionuț Sandu, the lawyer of the victim’s family: “It was found that the dose that was administered to him was ten times higher than the usual one in such cases and in a third row it was found that the second drug was administered to him 30 minutes after the first drug, under the conditions in which one had to wait for the first drug to take effect”.

A six-year-old girl was left an orphan. The patient’s mother requested a criminal investigation, especially since there was suspicion of malpractice. The Bucharest Court of Appeal decided to sentence the doctor, after the trial court had acquitted her.

After three years of investigations and five other trials, the Court of Appeal of Bucharest definitively sentenced the doctor to two years in prison for manslaughter. However, she will not end up behind bars because the execution of her sentence has been suspended. In addition, she was obliged to perform 60 days of community service, either at the Directorate of Social Assistance and Child Protection, or at the Archdiocese of Bucharest.

The College of Doctors: The doctor did not commit professional ethics violations

The officials of the Sanador hospital claim that they are surprised by the decision because the forensic experts’ opinions were favorable to them. They also say that the incident was also investigated by the College of Doctors, which concluded that the doctor did not commit any violations of professional ethics or medical deontology.

Ciprian Râmitan, Sanador Hospital lawyer: “Through the expert report administered during the criminal investigation phase, it was concluded that the death occurred as a result of an adverse reaction to solumedrol therapy, generated by a pre-existing cardiac pathology of the patient, a pathology that was not brought to the attention of the doctor”.

Through the final decision, the hospital and the convicted doctor, who no longer works there since 2016, were forced to jointly pay the two descendants of the patient – daughter and mother – more than 350,000 euros in moral damages. Money to be covered by insurance policies. The judges also approved the forced execution.

In the meantime, the doctor and the Sanador hospital, who claim that the prosecutors have also submitted conclusions of acquittal, challenged the decision of the Court of Appeal to the supreme court, in an extraordinary way of appeal: the cassation appeal.