News
348,800€ for death at birth in a public maternity hospital.
The legal advisors and medical experts had to prove the implications of the wrong procedures followed by the doctors and nurses of the Elena public hospital in Athens.
More specifically, events have evolved as follows:
The expectant mother had a history of allergic asthma and, in cases of crisis, received a specific medicinal product, a history for which she had informed the doctors.
She arrived at the hospital on December 29, 2009 for a scheduled caesarean section for her first child.
While in the surgery room for the operation, she experienced acute respiratory distress. The anesthetist administered cortisone and adrenaline and placed an oxygen mask.
The pregnant mother rebounded and after 3 hours of follow-up, it was decided to proceed with the cesarean operation. She was given dorsal anesthesia (epidural), everything went fine and at 3:30 pm the baby was born, healthy. The mother's condition was considered as excellent.
But instead of staying in an intensive station or under surveillance due to the history and recent Allergic Chase case, she was transferred to a common room.
At 23.40 pm, the woman felt discomfort and took two inhalations of a drug she received when she had an allergic asthma attack while her midwife administered cortisone and her nurse placed an oxygen mask. At the same time, the on-call anesthetist was summoned, which, according to the midwife and the nurse stated at the Sworn administrative Deposition (SAD), was summoned within 5 minutes.
The witness testimonies of specialized scientists based on international literature have shown that these 5 minutes were crucial to a bronchial asthma crisis as well as if she were in the delivery room or in an intensive care unit under close medical and nursing supervision by experienced medical and nursing staff , she could have been diagnosed and given a specific medical treatment.
"The anesthesiologist found her sleeping in a state of apnea, cyanotic, hydrated and with mydriasis, although a second ampoule of cortisone was administered during this period." Then, "the patient was escorted by the anesthesiologist to the surgery theater, where an on duty cardiologist and gynecologists on duty were summoned, unfortunately too late to bring back the tragic woman.
The court took seriously the forensic examination that it was "a suffocating death compatible with the reported bronchial asthma attack".
