Wed Sep 21, 6:03 PM ET PALERMO, Sicily (Reuters) – A 12-year-old girl became the third child to die this month after seemingly routine operations in Sicilian hospitals, sparking calls for public health centres to be shut down.
The girl, Miriam Bucolo, suffered a hemorrhage hours after surgeons removed her appendix on Wednesday, investigative sources said. Her parents went to the police in the province of Messina. The regional heath authorities also opened an investigation. A boy, also 12, died on Monday after being given an anesthetic before an appendix operation, in the city of Messina in the same province, but in a different hospital. And earlier this month a nine-month-old boy, Francesco Paolo Spoto, died in Palermo after being given an anesthetic before an operation for what media said was a cleft lip. Italy`s Health Minister Francesco Storace telephoned the Sicilian health director to request a “detailed report about similar episodes in Sicily recently.“ Consumer rights advocates Codacons said in a statement on its Web site https://www.codacons.it. “The first thing that needs to be done is to immediately close all of the hospitals in Messina, at least until the causes of death are established.“ The group, Italy`s main consumer association, called on authorities to “shed light on how people are dying in hospitals, where instead they should be cured.“ The baby boy`s family was shocked to hear that more Sicilian children had died after going under the knife. “I can`t believe it. It`s really happened again? What`s going on,“ Francesco`s mother, Maria Grazia la Cara, was quoted as saying by Italian media.

Sezioni:
• Rassegna Stampa

Aree Tematiche:
• SANITA'

Tags: anestesia, bucolo, malasanità, spoto