The scandal involving the Târgu Jiu County Hospital, where a teenager lost his life after being denied surgery, is far from over. On Monday, according to the manager of the medical unit, the disciplinary investigation committee will meet to analyze step by step what happened on the fateful day. “If, following this internal investigation, the doctor is found guilty, he could even be dismissed.” Dumitru Vienescu, director of the unit, told “Adevărul”. He explained to us in detail the context in which the events took place.
Andrei agonized for five hours in the hospital bed. Source: archive
Chronicle of a death announced at the hospital in Târgu Jiu
Monday, November 11, 7:15 p.m. Andrei, a 16-year-old teenager, is brought by ambulance to the emergency department of the Târgu Jiu Hospital. He had abdominal pain, which is why the doctors decided to admit him. Then, following the investigations carried out, they find that the boy needs emergency surgery. But the surgeon who was on duty refuses the intervention. The reason? He is not a pediatric surgeon, and if something goes wrong, he could be charged with malpractice. And he doesn’t want to risk prison. Therefore, he requests the transfer of the patient to the Hospital in Craiova, where there are specialists in pediatric surgery.
This moment lights the fuse of a long series of legislative aberrations, but also of a whole chain of errors and incompetence. First, according to the law, a doctor for adults can also treat children in urgent cases. But, at the time, the law did not absolve him of liability in case of failure. And the doctor from Târgu Jiu didn’t want to risk anything. What did he do instead? He decided to transport the patient to a larger hospital without realizing that this was impossible. The city ambulance had, at the time, no doctor available to accompany the boy, and in the absence of a functioning helipad, even the helicopter transport could not be carried out. The only option was to request an ambulance from Craiova that would have to come from over 100 kilometers away, a distance that can be covered in 60 minutes. The patient, however, was left to agonize on the hospital bed for more than 5 hours. And shortly after midnight, at 00:40, the doctors confirmed the death.
Who killed Andrei? The surgeon, who feared the consequences of the law in case of failure? The lack of empathy and responsibility, the fear of being put against the wall and hit with stones? Maybe the bureaucracy, maybe the legislation full of hiccups? Or the system itself poorly thought out, poorly implemented? “Adevărul” reporters tried to unravel the secrets of this mess of incompetence and errors, and the conclusion is only one. The child died within days, killed by a system that normally should have saved his life.
One doctor on vacation, another at home
Dumitru Vienescu, the manager of the County Hospital in Târgu Jiu, explained in detail the context of the events that took place in the evening and night of November 11. “The event took place starting at 7:30 p.m., during which the hospital’s activity was ensured by a guard line. We have never had a pediatric surgery guard line. So all urgent cases are taken over by general surgery doctors and possibly sent further depending on their complexity”the manager specified. “As a parenthesis: from the beginning of the year until now, general surgeons have operated on 49 children between the ages of 7 and 17. the spokesperson of the medical unit, Mihaela Țicleanu, continued the idea. Andrei, however, did not have this luck, as his file was initialed with death.
And the aberrations in the system continue, because within the hospital there is a pediatric surgery department where two doctors work: one works in the hospital, the other in the ambulatory. But the pediatric surgeon working in the hospital went on medical leave a month and a half ago. And on the evening of November 11, the one who works in the polyclinic of the medical unit was home. “It has a schedule from 08:00 to 15:00. And the event happened in the evening”the manager continued his explanations. It is natural to ask the question why this man was not called and summoned to the hospital urgently? Why was it decided to transfer the patient to another city if there was a pediatric surgeon in the Târgu Jiu hospital? “I can’t tell you why that doctor was or wasn’t called,” explains manager Vienescu.
The situation is explained to us by the spokesperson: “This surgeon who works in the polyclinic does not have a contract with the hospital, but only with the polyclinic. That’s how he was hired, just for the polyclinic. He has no right to work in the hospital. If such a thing had happened, it would have broken the law. According to the contract, he only deals with outpatients and that’s it.” explained Mihaela Țicleanu. It continues: “I don’t know if he could save the child or not. The guard line existed only in general surgery. In order to have a guard line in pediatric surgery, we need 4 pediatric surgeons, a change in structure, approval of the guard line, etc. All procedures. But we are a provincial hospital. It’s hard to have so many pediatric surgeons. They go to big hospitals”.
Therefore, with no pediatric surgeon available and one generalist who, out of fear, did not want to intervene, Andrei had no chance. The child basically died within days.
The doctor’s colleagues, in solidarity with him. “They refused to be part of the commission of inquiry”
The disciplinary investigation committee that will look into the case meets on Monday. why so late “Because, for days, no general surgeon in the hospital wanted to be part of this commission of inquiry. In solidarity with their colleague, they all refused. I had to look for someone in Craiova and Mehedinți, but there too without success. No one wants to take on that responsibility. So, in the end, we decided to invite an orthopedic surgeon who works right at our hospital.” The committee includes the medical director of the unit, the orthopedic surgeon, a forensic medicine doctor, the legal advisor and a secretary from the quality management service.
The commission will begin its deliberations on Monday, but the hospital manager could not tell us when the investigation will be completed. “I can’t give you a deadline. But we want to complete this investigation as soon as possible”. As for the sanction that the doctor risks if he is found guilty, the manager specified that his employment contract could even be terminated: “The commission will present some conclusions and depending on the seriousness of the fact, we will take the necessary measures. And if the doctor is found guilty, he risks having his employment contract terminated”.
Currently, the Târgu Jiu County Hospital operates in three distinct buildings scattered throughout the city:This is the biggest inconvenience we face. We have obtained a notice of opportunity from the Ministry of Health, we will submit the documentation for financing so that the hospital can be reunited, to bring all the departments together”. The manager told us that for this reason the work of doctors is extremely difficult, and the waiting times of patients very long. “The doctor at the UPU, for example, asks for a specialist cardiology consultation. The ambulance must come, pick up the patient, transport him to the location where cardiology is located, there he is investigated, and then he is returned to the UPU. A lot of time is wasted,” the manager also told us.
