The 39-year-old neighbor of Alcantarilla was operated on in the Virgen de la Caridad by a surgeon whom her family denounced for alleged negligence
Sara Gómez, the 39-year-old woman who had been struggling for weeks between life and death in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of Santa Lucía, when she was admitted due to complications arising during a liposculpture carried out at the Virgen de la Caridad clinic in Cartagena, has died this Saturday, as confirmed by sources close to the family. The body will now be transferred to the Institute of Legal Medicine for an autopsy.
The intervention that the woman underwent, consisting of the extraction of fat from the abdominal area, was in principle simple, but everything went wrong. “Sara entered the operating room on Thursday, the 2nd, at eight in the morning,” said Ezequiel Nicolás, who acts as the family’s spokesperson. “After the operation, they couldn’t stabilize her, they spent more than four hours trying,” he explained. Apparently, the cannula used to extract the fat had caused severe perforations in the intestinal area and colon, and Sara began to lose blood. Three and a half bags were transfused, as confirmed by Fulgencio Albaladejo, medical director of the Virgen de la Caridad, who assured that the intervention was not directed by a professional from the center, but by an external surgeon. Finally, 061 was notified, which transferred the patient to Santa Lucia. “She arrived around six thirty in the afternoon, almost dead,” Ezequiel Nicolás denounced. Since then, she has been intubated and in critical condition. This Saturday the death finally occurred.
Sara’s relatives are already preparing legal actions with the lawyer Ignacio Martínez, from the Patient Defender association, in the face of what they consider to be a serious case of negligence. The lawyer explains that the complaint will now be filed for the alleged reckless homicide of this Alcantarilla neighbor, mother of two children. The family believes that the Ministry of Health should take action on the matter and open an investigation to clarify the facts.
More than two hundred people gathered a few weeks ago in front of the Alcantarilla City Hall to demand justice and send a message of support to Sara who was still fighting to try to save her life. Sara’s brother was commissioned to read a statement in which he wanted to acknowledge the work “of all the health personnel of Hospital Santa Lucía, especially those of the ICU”, for their “professionalism” and “humanity”.
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