Health will pay 265,000 euros to relatives of a patient who died of gangrene in Siza

The Ministry of Health must compensate €265,000 for the relatives of one of Cieza’s neighbors who died of Fournier’s gangrene who was diagnosed late. The Controversial Administrative Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) has upheld the lawsuit brought by Attorney Ignacio Martinez on behalf of the Patient Ombudsman Association and acknowledges that there was a delay in diagnosis resulting in the patient’s death and that the administration must answer.

The events date back to November 21, 2018, when the 84-year-old man underwent a bilateral hydraulic resection – a type of inflammation in the scrotum – at Hospital de la Vega Lorenzo Guirao de Siza. After the surgery, according to the plaintiffs mentioned in their lawsuit, complications such as pain, inflammation, edema of the scrotum and penis, bruising, cough and phlegm arose. Already, on December 1, a nurse warned that the wound was “ugly” and thus reflected it in the report. Four days later, according to the decision, the lesion has already appeared at the point of discharge and an unpleasant odor, but the urologist has not yet seen the patient.

The specialist only attended the patient the next day, December 6, and discovered that he had an infectious complication, Fournier’s gangrene, for which he had to undergo emergency surgery. He was transferred to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at the Reina Sofia Hospital in Murcia, and after 41 days in the hospital, he ended up dying.

The Patient’s Ombudsman Association, on behalf of the widow, children, and grandchildren of this Siza resident, formalized an administrative claim and a subsequent suit against the Murcian Public Health System. The Ministry of Health opposed awarding any kind of compensation, claiming that “the patient’s pain, hematoma and scrotum are clinical manifestations that can occur after a hydrocele excision and are therefore not useful diagnostic symptoms for suspected Fourier gangrene. The department also stressed that If a man’s death from that infection is to be understood, the resulting damage must be understood as a loss of opportunity.

El TSJ, sin embargo, concluye que no cabe hablar de pérdida de oportunidad ya que ha quedado acreditado que la infección dañó los órganos vitales del paciente por lo que existe una relación de causalidad entreit la asistenyción de la zar admin the family.

Carmen Flores, president of the Patient Complaints Trustee Association, takes the opportunity to warn clinicians and authorities “of the danger of lowering the alert level in medical care in urgent cases like this during the bank holiday, days when, unfortunately, statistically, the most serious medical errors are concentrated.”