A doctor was sentenced to 12 months in prison, suspended for 3 years, for the death of a 29-year-old patient in a private psychiatric clinic.

The Third Three-member Criminal Court of Thessaloniki found him guilty of manslaughter by contributory negligence, while acquitting a fellow doctor and the clinic’s scientific director who faced the same charge.

The 29-year-old he was hospitalized for a number of years in the clinic, suffering from a mental illness. According to the case file, he was receiving medication and remained immobilized to deal with his panic attacks.

In mid-March 2018, he was hospitalized for a few days at Papageorgiou Hospital due to a respiratory infection, while he was discharged with clear instructions for strict adherence to physiotherapy, standing and mobilisation.

Returning to the clinic and after a few days, on April 1, the young man’s health showed an acute disturbance, as a result of which he ended the same day. According to the forensic findings, he suffered acute ischemia leading to cardiac arrhythmia and shock, resulting in his death by arrest.

The indictment charged the defendants that although they knew the patient’s history and the instructions given by the public hospital where he had been treated in the previous days, “they did not take care of his permanent mobilization and immobilization, they did not reduce the dosage of psychotropic drugs (they cause – among other things – the manifestation of cardiac disorders), they did not see to it that he underwent an electrocardiogram or that he was transferred to a hospital so that his condition could be evaluated by specialist doctors».

They themselves in their apologies denied the acts and omissions imputed to them, stressing that they acted in accordance with the rules of medical science.