TURIN. A compensation of over one million, to be precise 1,097,580.16 euros, that the Ministry of Health will have to pay to the family of a woman who died ten years ago, after contracting hepatitis C from transfusions with infected blood. To establish this, with a sentence published in recent days, is the Piedmont Tar. Asked after a long judicial dispute.
In 1984, Sabrina is pregnant. A pregnancy at risk, for which she has to undergo numerous blood transfusions. Transfusions that will continue until 1997. In 2001 she is hospitalized atthe Giaveno hospital for abdominal colic. And the doctors discover that she is affected by the Hcv virus, that of viral hepatitis C. From that moment, a real ordeal begins for Sabrina. In 2002 she underwent a liver transplant. His condition worsened and on November 6, 2010 he died of liver cirrhosis.
“There is a link between infection and transfusions – say the family members, who turn to the lawyers Glauco Susa and Veronica Marchiori, of the Venice bar – Prevention to avoid contagion is not stadequate ata. Precautions have not been taken to prevent infected blood from being donated. Not even a mere transaminase check and donor screening was done. Sabrina got sick from those transfusions. ”
The husband and three children bring a civil suit before the Turin Court. “Between the 70s and 80s the Ministry omitted the necessary controls that the law imposed on the collection and distribution of blood,” explain the lawyers. Which present pages and pages of documentation, of women’s medical records. Expert reports have been arranged. From the investigations, the judges write, it emerged that “the death in 2010 is related to liver disease, the course of which was that of a chronic HCV infection with evolution into cirrhosis”. In other words, there is a causal link between hepatitis C contracted following transfusions and Sabrina’s death.
In those years, the magistrates underline, “the contagion was highly predictable” and research tests were already in use. In 1984, there was already a provision that obliged the Ministry of Health to control and supervise the collection and distribution of blood. All donors were required to undergo transaminase testing. “The The Ministry appears to have omitted the necessary control activities for risk reduction, as there is no evidence of the execution of the tests and examinations recommended at the hour for transfusion therapy “. The affair ends in the Court of Appeal with a decision confirming that of the first instance.
On March 5, 2000, the sentence becomes final. «The ministry – explain the lawyers Susa and Marchiori – as often happens in disputes of this type, did not spontaneously pay the paid sums. So we turned to the Piedmont Tar. Which proved us right again ». —
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