Castellammare, Dr. Eutalia Esposito's 'dictatorial system' in the gynecology department

Castellammare. – For nearly two years, that medical record remained sealed in the archives, intended to demonstrate a bitter but inevitable biological fate. The story of a life cut short at birth, that of little Salvatore Abrunzo—the son of a young couple from Torre Annunziata—seemed to have ended with resignation in the face of the unpredictable and with a request for closure filed in 2024 by the Prosecutor's Office itself.

But behind the walls of the Obstetrics and Gynecology department at the San Leonardo hospital in Castellammare di Stabia, the truth was different. Not a tragic misfortune, but a patchwork of dramatic medical errors, followed by a cold, scientific cover-up orchestrated to avoid criminal prosecution.

At dawn yesterday, Guardia di Finanza officers from the Torre Annunziata and Castellammare companies served a precautionary detention order signed by the Preliminary Investigations Judge. The most serious measure concerns Dr. Eutalia Esposito, 71, then the acting head of the department, a prominent figure in the local health system and a former Castellammare city councilor: she was placed under house arrest.

Three other members of the team—gynecologists Salvatore Ercolano and Natalina Buono, and obstetrician Roberta Vinaccia—have been suspended from practicing law and holding public office for twelve months. The charges, of varying degrees, are horrifying: manslaughter in a healthcare setting, material and ideological forgery committed by a public official, fraud in a criminal trial, and obstruction of justice.

The drama in the delivery room and the maneuver of fiction

The events date back to March two years ago. Salvatore's mother went into labor at San Leonardo, but the birth revealed from the first moments a suffocating picture of severe postpartum complications. The baby was immediately transferred urgently to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. There, for a whole month, the equipment kept a faint hope alive, until the final blow: the newborn's heart stopped beating.

According to the prosecution's case, constructed by the Oplonti prosecutor's office and meticulously reconstructed by the financial police, the medical staff committed significant incompetence and negligence during the surgical and expulsion phases, causing the baby's fatal injuries. But it was what allegedly happened immediately after birth that transformed a tragic medical malpractice into a full-blown legal case.

Panic-stricken over the potential legal consequences, the medical staff allegedly agreed on a self-defense strategy. To explain away the newborn's asphyxiation and injuries, they allegedly staged a veritable disaster: the ad hoc creation of a real knot in the umbilical cord. A rare but natural anomaly that, if present in utero, would have explained the doctors' inability to save the child.

The destruction of evidence and the ward agreement

The investigation documents reveal the exceptional speed with which the group acted to erase every biological trace that contradicted the official account. The umbilical cord and placenta were immediately disposed of, in clear violation of the hospital's operational protocols and standard clinical practice, which require the preservation and tracking of findings in the event of adverse or critical events.

Not only the biological material: even the paper was bent to the needs of the suspects. The Guardia di Finanza investigators, through cross-referencing testimonies, records, and documentary evidence, discovered a systematic falsification of the medical records. The actual times of the operations, the timing of the surgical procedures, the sequence of administrations, and the editions of the birth progress sheets were allegedly altered, with the sole purpose of presenting a picture that perfectly matched medical manuals.

Finally, the barrier of silence. The suspects allegedly agreed upon the exact details they would provide to investigators during the initial briefing, aligning the details to dispel any suspicions. This plan, according to the Prosecutor's Office, was promoted and decisively directed by Dr. Esposito herself, thanks to her leading role and the charismatic and hierarchical influence she wielded within the department, which witnesses described as an environment conditioned by rigid, dictatorial, and unresponsive management.

The successful diversion and the reopening of the case

The cover-up plan had initially worked. The "unpredictable problem" version, supported by the falsified medical records and the absence of the destroyed organic specimens, had led the experts and the experts to consider the team's conduct unassailable. In 2024, the Torre Annunziata Prosecutor's Office was forced to request the dismissal of the case concerning the death of little Salvatore.

Subsequent investigations by the Guardia di Finanza (Financial Police) shattered the glass wall. Wiretaps, cross-examinations of staff admission records, and comparative examinations of delivery room logbooks and admission records revealed time discrepancies and flaws in the "agreed" statements.

The precautionary order executed yesterday does justice to the grief of the Torre Annunziata couple, who for two years lived with the doubt that their firstborn's death was not a foregone conclusion. Now the case shifts to the courtroom, where defense counsel gives way to the more serious charge: simultaneously betraying the Hippocratic Oath and the law of the land.