The director of the clinic where Diego Maradona was operated on by a hematoma spoke to the trial and accuses the personal doctors of the former star: “They did not let them enter the specialists who had to evaluate it. Ordered to be sedated”.
Leopoldo Luque, center, during the process
The trial is held in a court in San Isidro, from the outskirts of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Maradona suffered a heart attack and died while recovering after a head surgery to remove a blood clot, on November 25, 2020. Seven members of his medical staff are accused of negligence and judged under the charge of murder.
Fernando Villarejo, director of the Intensive Care Section at the Olivos Clinic, where Maradona was admitted between November 4 and 11, 2020, revealed new details about the last days of the football star. “In the room, everything was allowed“Said Villarejo, referring to the orders of hamburgers and unhealthy food made while Maradona recovered after the removal operation of a hematoma that had formed between the skull and the brain.
The doctor told the court that he feels like a pawn between “king and queen”, referring to neurosurgeon Leopoldo Luque and psychiatrist Agustina Cosachov, who decided on Maradona’s postoperative care: “It was embarrassing what happened there”.
Doctors were not left in the room
Villarejo added that Leopoldo Luque, the surgeon responsible for the team who followed Diego in his last days, refused the access of the doctors who had to evaluate him after the operation. “Luque refused the access of the doctors who were to evaluate Maradona: Dr. Mario Schiter and a psychiatrist who had been contacted by his daughters and had come to the clinic.“, Said Villarejo, calling the prohibition”strange and unpleasant“And explaining that the specialists should have decided on the convalescence of Maradona, who should have taken place in a rehabilitation clinic, rather than at his tiger home, 40 km from Buenos Aires, where he died five days after being discharged from the hospital.
The witness said that Maradona was operated on without any preoperative visit and that, a few days after the surgery, Luque ordered his sedation to “try to detox“Alcohol addiction and because he was a difficult patient to manage.
“I did not agree with the sedation, it was not the right place. I explained to Luque“, Said the director of the Intensive Care Unit of the Clinic, who stated that he registered everything in the medical file. He added that Maradona’s family agreed with the sedation”out of ignorance or because they trusted him”.
