A prosecution in western Greece has brought criminal proceedings against members of a hospital administration and medical staff for 40 deaths from coronavirus in the ICU during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Mortality rate in the ICU of the public hospital in Agrinio was 100% and the hospital governor was forced to resign by the political leadership of the Health Ministry.
The prosecution against members of the hospital administration and doctors has been made possible after 19 relatives of the 40 deceased finally managed to file lawsuits.
According to the newspaper “Peloponnisso”, the Agrinio prosecutor has filed criminal charges for exposure to danger to the extent of a felony against members of the Agrinio hospital administration and members of the nursing service, as well as against other persons as may arise from the investigation, for the total of 40 deaths of people aged 30 to 67, who were admitted, hospitalized in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) – Covid 19 and died.
The case was filed for regular interrogation with the Agrinio investigator, where the defendants will be called to testify and relatives of the deceased, experts and doctors will be called to testify as well.
The criminal prosecution comes after four years of legal actions by a total of 19 families of the deceased who are seeking answers.
According to information, the “key” to the development of the case, which was in danger of being shelved, are elements included in the medical expert reports drawn up by two doctors and submitted to the relevant authorities. These are doctors from an Athens hospital who undertook to study the medical files of the deceased and apparently reached conclusions that paved the way for the pursuit of criminal liability against specific individuals for the crime of exposure to danger.
In the context of the preliminary examination ordered by the Prosecutor of the Court of Appeals of Western Central Greece in June 2021, following the complaint filed by lawyer Thanasis Diamantopoulos, the medical expert opinions were assigned to a total of nine hospital doctors in Patras and Attica.
An effort that was fruitless, as citing workload, they declared their “inability” to process the relevant request. An attitude that delayed the investigation into the 100% mortality rates in the ICU-Covid 19 of the Agrinio hospital for at least two years.