Overview
- The emergency unfolded on December 18 at Rome’s Policlinico Umberto I, where a woman in her forties returned with severe abdominal pain after a prior gastric bypass and required urgent reoperation.
- Before proceeding, the surgeon consulted the Rome prosecutor’s office and spoke with on‑duty magistrate Francesco Saverio Musolino for guidance on how to act.
- Reports say the patient had previously stated in writing that she did not want blood transfusions even in life‑threatening circumstances, yet a transfusion was performed during the second operation.
- The woman survived and is in good health, but any complaint she files would obligate prosecutors to investigate the surgeon for the crime of coercion (“violenza privata”).
- Italian Supreme Court precedent protects a competent patient’s clear refusal of transfusions, and recent cases show outcomes often turn on documentation, including a Naples acquittal where no written refusal was on file and a 2018 Rome matter that honored a signed directive.