Medical records falsified after Francesca's death: Prosecutor's office seeks five-year sentence for Pineta Grande owner

Santa Maria Capua Vetere – Five years' imprisonment. This is the request made by the Santa Maria Capua Vetere Prosecutor's Office against Vincenzo Schiavone, a well-known Campania healthcare entrepreneur and owner of the "Pineta Grande Hospital" in Castel Volturno.

At the heart of the closing statement by public prosecutors Giacomo Urbano and Gerardina Cozzolino, delivered this morning in court, is the accusation of orchestrating the falsification of the medical records of Francesca Oliva, the 29-year-old from Gricignano d'Aversa who died in May 2014 from fulminant sepsis after giving birth to triplets.

A tragedy that shocked the entire community: two of the newborns, a boy and a girl, also died along with the mother; only the third child survived. But today, almost twelve years later, the judiciary's attention is focused on what happened after that tragic death within the walls of the Domitian clinic.

The requests for conviction

The prosecutor's axe didn't fall only on Schiavone. Prosecutors also called for severe sentences for the three doctors accused of complicity in the false ideology: 3 years and 6 months for Gabriele Vallefuoco and Giuseppe Delle Donne, and 3 years for Stefano Palmieri. This hard line is also shared by civil plaintiff lawyer Raffaele Costanzo, who represents the victim's family, who have been seeking justice for over a decade.

The mystery of the phantom antibiotic

The core of the accusation lies in an alleged, clumsy medical "makeover." According to the investigation, Francesca Oliva's medical records were altered after her death to build a defense after the fact.

Specifically, the administration of a broad-spectrum antibiotic was allegedly included, which, according to investigators, was never actually injected into the patient. Furthermore, crucial references to the general malaise the woman complained of before her collapse were deliberately deleted from the document.

The judicial process

This forgery trial arose as an offshoot of the main manslaughter case, which ended in October 2021 with a controversial verdict: the acquittal of 14 doctors (including staff from Pineta Grande and the Giugliano hospital, where the woman came from).

There, the court presided over by Roberta Carotenuto established that the fatal errors were committed by the woman's trusted gynecologist, Sabatino Russo, who however died in 2017 and therefore cannot be tried.

However, while direct medical liability was ruled out for the defendants, the allegation of document misrepresentation remained. This accusation now has the facility's top management in the dock. However, the case of two IT technicians at the clinic, Gianluca Salvatore Russo and Giorgio Conte, was dismissed due to a failure to notify the case.

The court will return on February 23rd, when the defense will give its final arguments, the last step before sentencing.