Surgeons At Italy's 'Clinic Of Horrors' Jailed For Unnecessary Operations

In a case that seems lifted from a Wes Craven movie script, eight Italian doctors have been slapped with jail time for carrying out 83 unnecessary operations including breast and lung removal on patients, the BBC is reporting.

Head surgeon Pier Paolo Brega Massone reportedly received the heftiest sentence -- 15 and a half years -- for overseeing the various procedures. The judge is quoted by the BBC as calling Brega Massone "cruel, malevolent and lacking the slightest sense of human pity," and ruled the surgeon had given a mastectomy to a patient with a minor breast ailment, and opted to remove an elderly woman's lung over three operations when the procedure only required one.

According to the Telegraph, at least five additional patients are said to have died from undergoing operations at Milan's Santa Rita Clinic -- dubbed the "clinic of horrors" by the Italian media -- under Brega Massone's supervision. Most of them were elderly patients in frail condition.

Malone's assistants Pietro Fabio Presicci and Marco Pansera were reportedly sentenced to 10 years and six years, nine months respectively, while five others received sentences of three years to 18 months.

Brega Massone has slammed the charges and defended himself as "the scapegoat."

Comments

[29bela]

04:01 PM on 11/02/2010

June 17 (Bloomberg) -- In many countries private health care means better medical service. In Italy, it may mean jeopardizing your life.

http://www­.bloomberg­.com/apps/­news?pid=n­ewsarchive­&sid=apcM0­r0WRofU

In one case, La Repubblica reports, an 88-year-old woman underwent three lung operations - with a payment of 12,000 euros (£10,400) per procedure - when a single operation was all that was medically needed.

In another, an 18-year-old girl underwent a medically unnecessary mastectomy.
------------------

Greedy basxxxs they were, not government healthcare. Our lovely doctors (some of them) get just as greedy here to. Medicare: The $60 Billion Fraud
September 5, 2010 5:00 PM

Medicare and Medicaid fraudsters are beating U.S. taxpayers out of an estimated $90 billion a year - $60 billion of it from Medicare - using a billing scam that is surprisingly easy to execute. Steve Kroft investigates Medicare.

Medicare Fraud: A $60 Billion Crime

Read more: http://www­.cbsnews.c­om/video/w­atch/?id=6­837797n#ix­zz149nEtVU­o

[29bela]

03:50 PM on 11/02/2010

No hospital or doctor should be paid if patient dies from other then natural cause. We don't have to pay in restaurant if the food was not good or they messed up order, why it should be different when life is in stake? Maybe we will get better if this becomes new rule.

[ajsandq]

03:18 PM on 10/31/2010

Excellent example of how amazingly well government run healthcare can play out.

[29bela]

03:58 PM on 11/02/2010

Before you write something stupid rather verify your informations:
June 17 (Bloomberg) -- In many countries private health care means better medical service. In Italy, it may mean jeopardizing your life.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=apcM0r0WRofU

In one case, La Repubblica reports, an 88-year-old woman underwent three lung operations - with a payment of 12,000 euros (£10,400) per procedure - when a single operation was all that was medically needed.

In another, an 18-year-old girl underwent a medically unnecessary mastectomy.
------------------

Greedy bastards they were, not government healthcare, smarty pants. Our lovely doctors (some of them) get just as greedy here too, so what is your excuse now?

Medicare: The $60 Billion Fraud
September 5, 2010 5:00 PM

Medicare and Medicaid fraudsters are beating U.S. taxpayers out of an estimated $90 billion a year - $60 billion of it from Medicare - using a billing scam that is surprisingly easy to execute. Steve Kroft investigates Medicare.

Medicare Fraud: A $60 Billion Crime

Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6837797n#ixzz149nEtVUo

[reddy52]

02:30 PM on 11/03/2010

You obviously have no idea what you're talking about.

[vegalili]

01:40 PM on 10/30/2010

I smell a movie coming!

[Bigidea]

12:35 PM on 10/30/2010

Anything is possible in Italy. A country that has Berlusconi as its head, is it any surprise? My sympathies to the patients and all those who suffered. One can only hope that Italy will wake up one day.

[inorbit]

02:06 PM on 10/30/2010

At least they've stopped vomiting during meals in order to eat more. That was really disgusting.

[Crystal13]

05:25 PM on 10/31/2010

You cannot blame a whole Country for a handful of slaughterers.
Crystal

[multidoc]

09:44 AM on 10/30/2010

And for heaven's sake, if you hurt your back go to a chiropractor first.

[multidoc]

09:43 AM on 10/30/2010

Everyone needs to have a really good family doctor, that you go to FIRST for everything that is not an emergency. Pay him/her out of your pocket if your insurance does not cover him/her, a single office visit is not that expensive; many people spend more on a dinner out. Also, just because an m.d. tells you to do something, that doesn't absolve you of responsibility for yourself. Research your condition and the treatments as best you can, get help from friends and family in the medical/health field, ask questions about what you don't understand and don't do anything until you are happy with YOUR decision.

[WorkhelpWorkhelp]

12:32 AM on 10/30/2010

Good lord. Thought it was a Holloween joke.

AAAuuuuggghh!

[drjasonmd]

09:56 PM on 10/29/2010

These are just the ones that got caught. The incentives of for-profit healthcare make this inevitable everywhere.

[NevaforLeadership]

09:23 AM on 10/31/2010

Italy has socialized medicine.

[drjasonmd]

01:47 PM on 10/31/2010

This occurred at a private clinic.

[MarkB1]

11:25 AM on 11/02/2010

Italy has a mixed system, and this happened to be private, but hey, don't let reality interfere with your stupid ideology

[Crystal13]

05:33 PM on 10/31/2010

No, it was just a case and a scandal. Our healthcare service is excellent, not expensive, and most of it, all citizens can have it, italians, foreigners, even illegally entered, unemployed, and no one is left dieing in the streets...........think before you speak.......
Crystal

[drjasonmd]

05:42 PM on 10/31/2010

It was a scandal perpetrated in a for-profit company by surgeons who received incentives for operating. It is not an indictment of the Italian healthcare system because it is not the typical model of the Italian healthcare system. Had you read my comment before firing from the hip, you would see that I haven't made this out to be a problem of the Italian system. It's a problem of a private clinic mutilating bodies for money.

Read before you respond.

[Tunghoy]

08:02 PM on 10/29/2010

Several years ago, a male nurse at the county hospital not far from here was convicted of killing 40 patients by lethal injection (combined total of several hospitals where he worked). He became New Jersey's most prolific serial killer and is currently serving life without parole. These things can happen anywhere, and under any system.

[drjasonmd]

09:57 PM on 10/29/2010

These weren't psychopaths on a killing spree. They were businessmen making a profit off people's bodies.

[belyeu]

02:41 PM on 10/30/2010

"These weren't psychopaths on a killing spree. They were businessmen making a profit off people's bodies."

When physicians charge a fee it also makes them a business man. When was the last time you saw a doctor's send you a bill or not ask for payment up front or immediately after the visit?

Some doctors won't even accept insurance and will only accept cash up front. They will then give you an itemized bill after your visit or procedure so you can try and get reimbursed by your carrier.

[wafuu]

06:11 PM on 10/29/2010

This is Italy. Might as well be the Republic of Panama. Don't think the comparisons to the U.S. are valid.

[medicontheedge]

10:34 PM on 10/29/2010

You are wrong. Millions of useless, ill-advised, futile, and profit driven procedures are carried out across the USA every year.
Surgeons don't make money unless they cut someone open. Heart doctors don't make money unless they do cardiac surguries, etc. Elective surguries, which include cosmetic ones are cash cows for clinics and hospitals.
Non ambulatory, fetal, elderly, demented patients get hip & knee replacement.

On & on ad nauseum.

[29bela]

04:17 PM on 11/02/2010

Unnecessary surgery exposed! Why 60% of all surgeries are medically unjustified and how surgeons exploit patients to generate profitsPosted by Greg on February 24, 2010 at 1:28am in Exposing The Big Pharma/Medical Cartel
By Alexis Black, citizen journalist ~

Every year millions of Americans go under the knife, but many of them are enduring great pain and shelling out thousands of dollars for surgeries they don't really need. In fact, the only people who seem to really benefit from these unnecessary medical procedures are the medical professionals who stand to make exorbitant amounts of money from performing them.

An estimated 7.5 million unnecessary medical and surgical procedures are performed each year, writes Gary Null, PhD., in Death by Medicine. Rather than reverse the problems they purport to fix, these unwarranted procedures can often lead to greater health problems and even death. In fact, according to Burton Goldberg, author of Heart Disease, most coronary artery bypass surgeries and angioplasties produce no real benefit to the patient and dangerous side effects like stroke or brain damage may result from the operations. "Coronary artery bypass surgery is called an 'overprescribed and unnecessary surgery' by many leading authorities," Goldberg writes. "Complications from such treatments are common and the expense to the health care system is extraordinarily high. In 1994, an estimated 501,000 bypass surgeries at $44,000 each were performed on Americans, 47 percent of which were done on men.”

http://snardfarker.ning.com/group/bigpharmacorruptionexposed/forum/topics/unnecessary-surgery-exposed

[multidoc]

05:30 PM on 10/29/2010

Most of the orthopedic surgeons and all the cardiovascular surgeons in the U.S. would be in jail if we put doctors in prison for unnecessary operations.

[drjasonmd]

09:58 PM on 10/29/2010

Not the ones on salary.

[multidoc]

09:30 AM on 10/30/2010

If they aren't paid piecework, true, it would remove the financial incentive and so become much less likely.

[belyeu]

03:18 PM on 10/30/2010

"Not the ones on salary."

LOL.........................many surgeons who work in group practices are expected to perform as many surgeries as possible to help increase profits. Those conservative ethical guys are pushed out or fired.

The level of care in this country varies dramatically from good to horrible.

[Speechlesstx]

05:28 PM on 10/29/2010

Another omen of things to come in the U.S.?

[drjasonmd]

09:58 PM on 10/29/2010

The unnecessary operations are already there. It's the prosecutions that are lacking.

[belyeu]

04:38 PM on 10/30/2010

"Some things just shouldn't be for profit. "

Exactly.

[belyeu]

06:50 PM on 10/30/2010

"It's a big problem. America is good at solving big problems.'

America can no longer fix big or small problems.

[doubtingdavid]

05:04 PM on 10/29/2010

Socialised medicine at work, the direction out healthcare is going.

[FoonTheElder]

05:34 PM on 10/29/2010

In the U.S. we waste $1 trillion per year (310m x $3200/yr) and still 25% are uninsured or underinsured, killing 40,000+ per year.

And the 'fiscal conservative' right wing complains about the cost of socialized medicine, while having no problems wasting $1 trillion per year on the big corporations that pay their campaign contributions.

[wafuu]

06:10 PM on 10/29/2010

Grayson wasn't far from the mark when summarizing the GOP's health care plan as, "Die quickly."

[rosiebond007]

04:58 PM on 10/29/2010

Family member taken to hospital by ambulance in the UK with internal bleeding... several blood transfusions, internal cameras everywhere possible and a week's stay with bed, food and great nursing.

The cost ...... 0

[belyeu]

09:23 PM on 10/30/2010

In the US one week in the ICU or CCU is around $45k.

[drjasonmd]

05:47 PM on 10/31/2010

Which often goes down the tubes because once they are discharged, many cannot afford the follow-up.