Loredana Guida’s mother and brothers turned to the President of the Republic, the Minister of Health and the judiciary through a letter to ask for justice: they recount the ordeal experienced by the 44-year-old teacher from Agrigento, who died of malaria in January 2020.
In life she had a big dream, to open a school in Nigeria, after falling in love with this country on vacation. A few days before her death she had returned to Africa, but on her return to Italy she had complained of some symptoms including high fever and exhaustion. The family doctor was convinced it was a trivial flu, and he didn’t even visit her.
In a short time, however, his conditions worsened, to the point of going to the emergency room of the San Giovanni di Dio hospital in Agrigento with a fever of 39. There too no one heads for malaria. Her guide signs her resignation and returns home, where she continues to get worse: on her phone, her doctor prescribes some drugs, completely ineffective against falciparum, the most serious form of malaria there is.
After another 4 days the woman goes to the medical guard in serious condition. The next day she arrives at the hospital in a coma, but it is only on 21 January that she is tested for malaria, which gives a positive result. For the drug that would have saved her life, quinine, a car from Agrigento heads towards Catania.
But it’s too late: after two weeks of ordeal, the woman dies. “The experts – tell the brothers Giuseppe and Luisa – have no doubts: if the disease had been discovered on January 15th, he would have had an 80% chance of surviving and even when he was already in a coma, if action had been taken, the chance of survival would have been 60%”.
Loredana had tried for days to explain that she had been in Nigeria, hoping to get a test. The family filed a complaint with the Public Prosecutor’s Office, but the investigators asked for the case to be closed arguing that “Loredana’s health conditions were now critical and that nothing could have been done to save her life”.
Only three doctors have been asked to be indicted. Now the family is asking for “a fair trial” in which “the parties, each asked for their responsibilities in the adversarial procedure that befits a civilized country, can and must express their reasons by declaring themselves innocent until proven guilty”, but, if guilty, “be condemned without the possibility of shortcuts”.
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