The lawyer of the lady hospitalized in the gynecology department of the Pugliese hospital has sent a formal warning to the top management of the city hospital and for information to the head of gynecology following news spread in the press and then not corrected after the inpatient tested negative for three subsequent swabs. We receive and publish the text of the lawyer’s notice:
“I am writing this in the name and on behalf and in the interest of my client, to mean the following to you. On September 5, 2020, my representative, pregnant, went to the emergency room of Codesta Hospital, due to some blood loss. Immediately she was transported to the Gynecology-Obstetrics ward where, immediately after the visit, she was admitted to the hospital ward with a diagnosis of high-risk pregnancy. After entering the ward, since hospitalization had been arranged, the public administrationpatient was subjected to a first rhino-pharyngeal swab to ascertain the possible contagion from the covid-19 virus. The next day, at 6.00 in the morning, the patient, in a state of pregnancy at risk, was alerted that the positive result of the covid-19 examination had been received from the microbiology analysis laboratory. However, the lady was instructed not to alarm the subjects with whom she had come in contact in the last hours, since the scarce presence in the viral load markers suggested a possible error (falso positivo).
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So that, after having followed the instructions of the ward, the lady learned with amazement and above all apprehension, that two web news publications (not only reported the news of the positivity of a woman hospitalized in the ward (even before there was certainty) but that even – contrary to the truth – rthey represented the patient’s emergency transfer to the infectious disease ward. My client, certain that it could be another person, contacted the ward and learned with disbelief that the person who would have tested positive and talked about on the web (the only hospitalized) was her.
At that point, shocked by what was happening, in the (vain) attempt to limit the concerns of her family and the public alarm, which the news had aroused (in the ward and in the city), requested, through the health personnel, the health administration to remedy the false news that was circulatingor, while waiting for the second swab (which in the meantime had been performed) was processed. And yet, the news has never been corrected by the hospital, let alone by information sites; even after having obtained the negative results of the other two swabs (tried three times), the company failed to communicate the positive evolution of the affair to the media.
Basically, in order not to admit the mistake, it was preferred to leave in public opinion the false certainty that the patient admitted to the gynecology ward of “Pugliese-Ciaccio” was positive for covid, with all that this entails in terms of: Right to correct information for citizens on the spread of the virus in the hospital; right of my client not to be mistakenly identified as a positive subject to the virus (since it is the only patient transferred from room (not from ward) to the result of the swab; right to the safety and serenity of the people with whom the lady was in contact also within the department. Moreover, the false, imprudent and premature spread of the news led to the need in the same department to test all the doctors who had come into contact with the patient who, it is reiterated, was absolutely negative for three swabs, processed for four times. Finally, the false result of the first test, the consequent need to subject the lady to three rhino-pharyngeal swabs, the public dissemination of the news later revealed to be incorrect, caused a strong psycho-physical disturbance in a subject already tried from hospitalization for threats of abortion.
For all the above reasons, The Hospital Authority is invited and warned to immediately rectify the (incorrect) information about the positivity of my representative (as it appeared on 6 September 2020 on the two websites), while maintaining absolute respect for her privacy, I reserve the name, slavishly specifying the number and quality of the (negative) results of the swabs performed on the same (3). I inform you right now that, in the event of no response, I will be forced to exhibit all the events described to the local Public Prosecutor’s Office, in order to evaluate the criminal relevance of the premature escape of the result on the positive test (later revealed to be incorrect), of the alarm to public peace and of the incorrect communication of data concerning the ascertainment of positive cases. This is valid for all legal purposes, including as a warning and formal notice in relation to all the damages suffered and suffered by my client “.
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