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Date Published: 14/01/2022
ARCHIVED - Corruption probe into heart surgery waiting list in Murcia
The deaths of dozens of patients in the Region of Murcia have been attributed to 'the manipulation of waiting lists'
The Murcia Region's Prosecutor's Office has opened an investigation into an alleged "manipulation of waiting lists" for heart operations by the Virgen de la Arrixaca University Clinical Hospital's Cardiovascular Surgery service, which may have led to the death of dozens of patients.
According to a complaint by two doctors, which includes detailed information on around 30 cases, the deceased were pushed aside when it came to entering the operating theatre, while people who had been on the waiting list for less time and presented pathologies with the same or even lesser severity in some cases were operated on.
The complaint relates to crimes of prevarication, negligent homicide and embezzlement of public funds and was filed by two surgeons from the hospital with the Public Prosecutor's Office against Corruption in Madrid, which was then forwarded to the prosecutor's office in Murcia in mid-December.
The accusations are directed against the current Health Minister, Juan José Pedreño, his predecessor, Manuel Villegas, who left office almost a year ago, the managing director of the Murcia Health Service (SMS), Francisco José Ponce, his predecessor, Asensio López, and two officials from the Arrixaca hospital.
The complainant doctors hold all of them responsible for "advancing" patients on the waiting list who were not due to be operated on, giving them favourable treatment to the detriment of those who should have been operated on earlier in line with the date of entry on the Cardiovascular Surgery lists.
They claim that the delay in scheduling the operations of those who really had priority "meant that they finally died on the waiting list".
"There has been negligent handling of the waiting lists, resulting in deaths that could have been avoided if the time order had been respected", said the surgeons, and expressed their "dismay" at the death of "patients who waited fruitlessly for surgery that never came".
The files under investigation actually contain detailed information on almost 100 patients, including those who underwent surgery and those who died without undergoing surgery. The deaths occurred between 2014 and 2018.
"The reason for these advances must be one of the questions to be answered by this investigation," demand the complainants.
Meanwhile, the regional Ministry of Health assures that it has not had "formal notification from the Murcia Prosecutor's Office about the filing of a complaint over the management of the Cardiovascular Cardiology Service's waiting list" of the Arrixaca hospital.
However, health officials are aware of the accusations made in the complaint and "recall that in 2019 there was a similar complaint which, after an investigation with the provision of supporting documentation by this hospital, ended up being archived by the Public Prosecutor's Office".
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