Vincenzo Schiavone, owner of Pineta Grande, sentenced to four and a half years for forgery of a public document.

The first-instance trial into the serious documentary irregularities that followed the tragic death of Francesca Oliva has come to a close. The single judge of the Santa Maria Capua Vetere court sentenced Vincenzo Schiavone, a well-known healthcare entrepreneur and owner of the Pineta Grande Hospital in Castel Volturno, to four and a half years in prison for forgery of a public document.

The sentence punishes the alteration of medical records in an attempt to cover one's tracks after the young patient's death.

The sentences for the doctors

Along with the clinic's management, the court sentenced doctors Giuseppe Delle Donne and Gabriele Vallefuoco to three years and four months. Dr. Stefano Palmieri was acquitted. The judge's decisions almost entirely uphold the prosecution's case, presented by prosecutors Giacomo Urbano and Gerardina Cozzolino.

During their closing argument last January, the prosecution requested five years for Schiavone, three and a half years for Vallefuoco and Delle Donne, and three years for Palmieri. The court also ordered damages in a separate proceeding for the civil plaintiffs, represented by the victim's family.

The tragedy in the delivery room

The forgery case stems from a painful medical malpractice case dating back to May 2014. Francesca Oliva, a 29-year-old from Gricignano d'Aversa, died in a Caserta clinic from severe sepsis.

The young woman had recently given birth to triplets after being transferred from the hospital in Giugliano in Campania. The birth was tragic: two babies died, while only the third survived.

Post-mortem alterations

The investigation into the medical records was triggered following a formal complaint filed by Francesca's mother, just as the main hearing into her death was underway. According to investigators' findings, the twenty-nine-year-old's medical records were manipulated immediately after her death.

Specifically, the investigation revealed the fictitious inclusion of a broad-spectrum antibiotic, which was never administered to the patient. At the same time, references to the serious general malaise the woman was experiencing before her death were apparently deleted.

Murder acquittals

The medical records trial arose from an excerpt from the main proceedings for multiple manslaughter, which concluded in October 2021. On that occasion, the court presided over by Roberta Carotenuto fully acquitted the fourteen doctors on trial.

The judges found the medical staff at Pineta Grande and Giugliano hospitals to be unaccountable, instead attributing the clinical errors to the victim's trusted gynecologist, Sabatino Russo. However, the man could not answer the charges because he died in 2017.