The exhumation. Prosecutor Vincenzo Capomolla ordered the exhumation of the body of a woman from Tarsia who died on March 26 after hospitalization. The head of the investigating judiciary ordered the autopsy examination, entrusting the task to the forensic doctors Berardo Cavalcanti and Vannio Vercillo. The necropsy was carried out yesterday and the body returned to the family.
The legal action occurred as a result of the complaint presented by the relatives of the woman, who died in the Pneumology department, after the funeral. The report by the prosecutor’s consultants will have to ascertain whether there is a causal link between the patient’s death and the negligent conduct of the medical staff who treated her. For this reason, medical records and biological samples were acquired. The judiciary wants to verify through the cross-analysis of all the data whether everything possible was done to avoid the death. The deceased’s family members are assisted by expert witnesses who participated in the autopsy. The lawyer involved in protecting the rights of the patient’s family is the lawyer Giovanni Ferrari, while the two doctors who ended up on the register of suspects – this is a necessary action in the presence of unrepeatable acts such as the autopsy – are assisted by the lawyer Pasqualino Maio.
In the next few days, doctors and nurses from the hospital department will be interviewed to reconstruct all the phases preceding the death. This was to ascertain whether the guidelines applied were adequate for the pathology manifested by the patient. These are technical-health profiles on which Cavalcanti and Vercillo will have to comment in the final drafting of the consultancy. The document, which is fundamental for the outcome of the investigation, will be delivered to the investigating magistrates within 90 days.
