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2024: Fine of 10 million rubles for a medical error due to which the patient died
The Tyumen District Court in August 2024 decided to recover from the Nizhnetavdinsk Regional Hospital No. 15 compensation in the amount of ₽10 million for a medical error that caused the death of a 38-year-old patient. The court decision was made after considering the claim of the relatives of the deceased, who demanded compensation for moral damage.
The incident occurred in September 2021, when an ambulance team took a man to hospital with a diagnosis of intercostal neuralgia on the left, pain syndrome. The patient complained of severe back pain, which was aggravated by breathing and body repositioning. The duty therapist, having examined the patient in the admission department, did not offer hospitalization to clarify the diagnosis and relieve pain, limiting himself to prescribing drugs for neuralgia and referring the man to outpatient treatment.
Five days later, the patient was again taken to the hospital, where another doctor on duty decided to hospitalize him. However, ten days later, the man refused inpatient treatment due to the lack of positive dynamics. A day after discharge, he was hospitalized in serious condition in the Tyumen Regional Clinical Hospital No. 2, where the patient died on the second day of his stay.
The investigation showed that the patient's cause of death was bilateral polysegmental pneumonia, left-sided purulent pleurisy with involvement in the inflammatory process of the heart, complicated by the development of septic shock and multiple organ failure with pulmonary and cerebral edema. It turned out that the general practitioner of the Nizhnetavdinsk hospital at the initial treatment misdiagnosed, which led to the wrong treatment and, ultimately, to the death of the patient.
On the fact of improper performance of professional duties, resulting in death by negligence (Article 109 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), a criminal case was initiated. However, the Nizhnetavdinsky District Court terminated it due to the expiration of the statute of limitations. Relatives of the deceased appealed to the court for compensation for moral damage, believing that the disease from which their relative died could be successfully cured with timely and correct diagnosis.[1]