A Milan court on Wednesday
sentenced a former thoracic surgeon to life in prison for
first-degree murder in the deaths of four elderly patients.
Police arrested the former head of Milan's Santa Rita
Clinic, Pier Paolo Brega Massone, after the sentencing.
The former surgeon "has an evil nature" and "did not
hesitate" to perform some 90 unnecessary surgeries with utter
lack of compassion for others, prosecutor Grazia Pradella said
in requesting the life sentence.
In October 2010, Brega Massone was sentenced in a previous
trial to 15-and-a-half years in prison on the charges while his
assistants, Fabio Pietro Presicci and Marco Pansera, were
sentenced to 10 years, and six years and nine months
respectively.
The scandal surrounding the Santa Rita Clinic - dubbed
the ''clinic of horrors'' by Italian media - broke in May 2008,
when Brega Massone and Presicci were jailed on murder charges.
Eleven other doctors and the owner of the clinic were, at
the time, placed under house arrest for their role in performing
superfluous and lucrative operations, including on some
terminally ill patients.
In rejecting his plea to avoid preventive custody, the
Court of Cassation said in 2009 that Brega Massone was "fully
aware" of the risks involved in carrying out the unnecessary
operations and did so for "no other reason than making a
profit".
The court had said he should remain in jail while awaiting
trial, stressing that he had "decreed the patients' deaths" with
his conduct.
Among the operations performed was the removal of a lung,
which allegedly caused the patient to die.
Another alleged murder case, investigators said, was that
of an elderly woman who could have been saved by having a tumour
wholly removed but instead underwent three separate operations,
which fatally weakened her while lining doctors' pockets.
At least two women, including a 19-year-old, were subjected
to mastectomies for simple cysts as part of what prosecutors
said was an ongoing ''system'' set up to claim reimbursements
from the State health fund.
Brega Massone claimed in 2010 that he ''always thought of
the well-being of the patient and acted according to protocol
and conscience''.
He said he was ''the scapegoat'' for the broader situation
in Milan's public health system.
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