2024-05-08 12:06:00
The University Hospital Zurich (USZ) will verify all cases of deaths that occurred between 2016 and 2020 in its cardiac surgery clinic. During this period, the cardiologist Francesco Maisano was its director. He was fired in 2020. Legal proceedings were filed against him a year later.
The USZ has appointed a working group to re-examine the causes of the deaths that occurred during the period concerned, he told Keystone-ATS on Tuesday. He confirms information revealed by German-speaking radio SRF.
Already in 2018, media reports reported a higher mortality rate at the USZ cardiac surgery clinic than in other hospitals. A whistleblower doctor then contacted the management of the university hospital to criticize the clinic’s director, Francesco Maisano, and denounce avoidable complications and falsified reports.
At the end of 2020, the USZ fired Mr. Maisano. In February 2021, the Zurich Public Prosecutor’s Office closed proceedings opened against him for suspicion of forgery in documents and damage to data.
In a recent trial, however, his interim successor estimated that around 150 patients who died during heart surgery could have survived. He made serious criticisms of Mr Maisano, who is currently working in Italy.
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