The insurer of the UTE Torrevieja Salud, former concessionaire of the hospital in the city until it was returned to public management, must compensate a 70 year old patient with 480,000 euros “for inadequate medical practice in the care provided”, during which he suffered permanent spinal cord damage”.
Lawyers Ica Aznar Congost and Javier Bruna Reverter, from the association ‘El Defensor del Paciente’, have reached an out-of-court agreement whereby the insurance company Berkshire Hathaway European Insurance (Spain) of the Torrevieja Salud UTE Hospital will pay the compensation, according to the association in a statement.
The lawyers initiated a claim in April 2021, for which an administrative appeal was filed before the 2nd Section of the Administrative Litigation Chamber of the Superior Court of Justice of the Valencian Community.
During this process, and prior to the court issuing a ruling, an out-of-court settlement was reached with the insurance company. The public hospital was privately managed at the time of the events.
The events date back to 2020, when the patient, then 70 years old, had suffered a direct trauma to the lumbar area three months earlier and had gone to the Torrevieja Hospital up to three times, but the indicated imaging tests were not performed (dorsolumbar resonance).
This situation led to the patient not undergoing surgery, despite the fact that he had an evolving spinal cord injury that required surgery to decompress the spinal cord, stabilise the spine and prevent the damage from progressing. Instead, he was discharged from hospital.
The Patient Ombudsman points out that if the dorsolumbar MRI had been performed in time, the injury could have been diagnosed early and surgery could have been performed immediately. However, this was not done and currently “the patient has permanent spinal cord damage as a result of the poor healthcare provision.”
The administration has defended itself, providing reports from the inspection itself and from an internal medicine specialist, which defended good medical practice, and resolving the case by dismissing the claim for property rights presented.
In response, the legal services of the association ‘El Defensor del Paciente’ appealed to the High Court of Justice of the Valencian Community, where they provided a report from a traumatologist and an assessment of injuries and after-effects, which ended with an indemnity agreement with the insurance company.
