The Superior Court of Justice of Castilla y León has sentenced the Ministry of Health to compensate the family of a woman who died in October 2020 at the Río Carrión Hospital in Palencia as a result of a covid-19 infection, of which He was infected in the hospital itself, according to the sentence provided by The Patient Ombudsman.
The Contentious-Administrative Chamber of the TSJCyL has upheld the appeal presented by the family against the dismissal due to administrative silence of the claim presented for health responsibility, considering that there was a violation of the lex artis when admitting the patient suspected of covid contagion with an already confirmed patient. The deceased was admitted to said center for a pathology unrelated to Covid-19 and was infected in the health center itself when she was admitted with a Covid patient, as stated in the sentence.
The Patient Advocate Association, attended by the children of the deceased, M.P.G. 75 years old and with multiple pathologies that made her a person at risk, has reported what she considers a “pioneering sentence” against Sacyl, in a sentence in which an “error” in the hospital's actions is recognized, for which they will have to compensate the children.
The woman was admitted to the emergency room of the Río Carrión Hospital on September 6, 2020, referred from the Paredes de Nava health center (Palencia) with a feverish syndrome and, in a first test, an antigen test, she tested positive for covid. -19, although "with the warning from the hospital's own laboratory that any positive in that initial test had to be confirmed by performing another more specific test", a PCR.
As stated in the sentence, despite not having this confirmation, the woman was admitted to a room with another patient with positive covid, where she remained until almost eight in the afternoon on September 7, after the test in the morning carried out would have been negative; The children were informed that she was going to an isolation room due to contact with a positive person.
The patient was treated for her illness and continued to test negative for Covid after seven days, when the PCR was repeated, but after fourteen days she developed symptoms compatible with coronavirus and the PCR was already positive; Her condition became complicated until she died on October 9 as a result of complications resulting from a Covid infection.
The ruling recognizes an “erroneous action” by the health administration, since “it seems evident and no protocol is necessary to justify it, just common sense, that a suspected infectious person cannot be admitted to a shared room until it is confirmed that he is infected.” with another who is already diagnosed as such.”
Also that this assessment “was like this before September 17, 2020 makes it evident that on September 7, 2020, the patient was already moved to an isolated room on the same floor due to having been in close contact with a positive patient.” .
In addition, the hospital had enough rooms to admit the patient in a non-shared room, "which would have prevented the hospital contagion that occurred when she was admitted to a room with a patient already confirmed with covid-19."
The TSJ sees “sufficient indications” that the patient was infected with Covid in the hospital and, given the erroneous nature of her actions, considers that it is the hospital's responsibility to prove that said infection had not taken place in its facilities.
The clinical reports and the patient's evolution “make it very likely that the infection occurred in the hospital,” insists the ruling, which concludes that she died “as a consequence of the Covid infection due to complications of that disease. There has been no loss of opportunity but rather a violation of the lex artis.”
The president of the 'El Defensor del Paciente' Association, Carmen Flores, values the importance of this “pioneering” ruling and has insisted that “covid cannot serve as an excuse to justify medical negligence.”
Likewise, he has denounced that from the Río Carrión Hospital “a great effort was made to hide the hospital contagion from the family. Despite the fact that her children repeatedly requested their mother's complete medical history, to which they were entitled, they were denied access to the progress sheets, indicating from the aforementioned center that they were subjective notes from the care staff."
And “when we finally had access to these progress sheets, what they showed were not in any way subjective notes but confirmation that the infection was hospital-acquired, recognized by the doctors themselves who were treating her,” Flores insisted.
