“A catastrophic series of errors and omissions by doctors.” These are the conclusions of the forensic medical examination ordered by the investigating judge of the Court of Rome in the context of the incident of evidence in the investigation of the prosecution into the death of journalist Andrea Purgatori. Radiologist Gianfranco Gualdi, his assistant Claudio Di Biasi and Dr. Maria Chiara Colaiacomo, both members of his team, as well as cardiologist Guido Laudani are listed for involuntary manslaughter in the register of suspects. “The neuroradiologists under investigation – write the experts – incorrectly reported the MRI scan of May 8, 2023 for incompetence and imprudence and those of June 6 and July 8 for incompetence.” Regarding the cardiologist Guido Laudani, the latter “carried out insufficient diagnostic investigations” and “misinterpreted – it is read – the results of the Holter examination, arriving at the conclusion that the multivisceral embolization was a consequence of the atrial fibrillation. Furthermore – the experts continue – he did not adequately evaluate the clinical picture and the effects of the anticoagulant treatment he had prescribed”.
The journalist's hospitalization and the “catastrophic series of errors”
The document also reconstructs the clinical management of Purgatori and, with reference to the hospitalization of July 2023, the experts state that the journalist “apparently left without consulting the results of a blood sample taken on the 19th, where severe anemia was detected, which would have been contraindicated. resignation.” It was therefore a “catastrophic sequence of errors and omissions – underlines the expert opinion – starting, in this aspect, from the erroneous diagnosis of atrial fibrillation, with the consequent anticoagulant treatment that proved potentially fatal and in fact contraindicated in endocarditis, and with total obscuration of the overall clinical context”.
Late diagnosis
But not only that. According to what is reported in the document, “correct diagnostic and therapeutic treatment would have allowed the patient Purgatori a longer survival period than that which occurred. The scientific literature estimates that the one-year survival rate is 80% if endocarditis is treated promptly and adequately.” Finally, the report specifies that the endocarditis, which caused the journalist's death, could have “been identified more quickly, at least at the beginning of the hospitalization from June 10 to 23, 2023, or even earlier, in the second age of May 2023 if the neuroradiologists had correctly evaluated the result of the examinations carried out on May 8,” the experts conclude.
Cover photo: ANSA/MATTEO CORNER | Andrea Purgatori, Milan October 12, 2022
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