‘I’m afraid to go out on the street,’ says a doctor who denounced Prevent Senior

Physician Walter Correa Neto, one of the authors of the complaints against Prevent Senior, said he is afraid to walk in the street after being threatened by company directors. “I’m afraid to go out on the street. I’ve been looking back to see if there’s anyone behind me,” said the doctor during a statement to the CPI of Prevent in the City Council of São Paulo this Thursday morning (25).

Correa Neto said he is awaiting a response to the request to be included in the witness protection program. “I’ve been scared ever since I got a call from Pedro Batista Júnior [um dos diretores da empresa] saying that I was exposing my daughter and my family to risk,” he said.

In a statement, the health care provider accused the authors of the dossier of lying to the CPI and stated that it would prosecute them criminally. “It is regrettable the testimony of doctors who worked for years in a company they considered criminal. If the statements of these doctors were true, they would easily be accused, criminally, of omission or complicity.”

​According to Prevent Senior, Correa Neto is being investigated by Cremesp (São Paulo Regional Council of Medicine) for the accusation of violating patient records and leaking them to the press. Correa Neto said that the investigation is unfair and that he is being the victim of “procedural harassment” by citing the actions brought against him by the company.

Correa Neto is among the professionals who prepared the dossier delivered to the Senate CPI, which accuses the company of indiscriminately prescribing the so-called “Covid kit”, consisting of unproven medications for the treatment of the disease.

Prevent’s CPI also heard on Thursday the doctors Andressa and George Joppert, who worked in the operator’s units and also provided information for the preparation of the dossier delivered to the senators.​

The prescription and distribution of the “Covid kit” by Prevent were vetoed by the Public Ministry after signing a TAC (Term of Adjustment of Conduct) with the company, which includes other provisions.

The doctor, who worked on shifts at Prevent’s emergency rooms, says that he advised patients not to take their medications and that he prescribed them as determined by the company. “We were in doubt whether the patient returned to the hospital with symptoms due to the worsening of the disease or the side effects of the medications,” he said.

The deponent also accused Fernando Parrillo, one of the operators of the operator, of breaking the medical confidentiality of his father, who received a prescription for the “Covid kit” signed by Correa Neto. Prevent Senior released this information during the Senate CPI investigations. “He’s a liar,” said the doctor, who also referred to the company’s management as “a mafia.”

In testimony to the CPI, he also accused the health operator of tolerating medical errors to prioritize speed in patient care. The professional said that he witnessed pressure to speed up consultations and the existence of a ranking of which professionals attended the most. “There is pressure for a very quick service, which induces the doctor to make mistakes, which are much tolerated by Prevent.”

According to the doctor, the dynamics of care in the emergency room was initiated by nurses who played the role of doctors. “Doctors only stopped by to stamp and sign the prescription,” he said.

He recalled that he was called by director Fernando Oikawa after spending a day without prescribing the kit, in May of last year.

“He said I had to prescribe. I tried to argue that we were giving patients a package of side effects pure and simple, but it didn’t help. He made the same arguments as the Pentagon [termo usado pela empresa para se referir à chefia médica] that they would have very good numbers [sobre a eficácia do kit]. They said they were going to publish something and that they were going to revolutionize medicine.”

Oikawa was heard by the Prevent CPI last week and denied the indiscriminate distribution of the kit. Protected by a preventive habeas corpus, which guaranteed him the right not to produce evidence against himself, he said that doctors had autonomy and that medicines were prescribed individually, according to the needs of each patient.

According to the doctor Andressa Joppert, who worked in the operator’s emergency room until August last year, there was guidance to change the ICD (International Classification of Diseases) after patients hospitalized with Covid-19 remain hospitalized for more than 14 days. The practice was also reported by physician George Joppert.

Joppert also confirmed the practice of early discharge at Prevent Senior. “I arrived at the shift in the morning with the obligation to discharge patients who were still with low saturation [concentração de oxigênio no sangue] and she was asked if she postponed the discharges.”