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Spanish Health Services Face Big Payouts Over Fatal Malpractice in COVID Case, Newborn Death

Judges tied the deaths to clear departures from standard care, citing missed tests, delayed monitoring, incorrect intubation.

Overview

  • A Seville administrative court ordered the Andalusian Health Service to pay €283,612 plus interest and costs to the family of a man who died in 2021 after inadequate COVID-19 emergency care, and the service has appealed.
  • The ruling found a breach of the lex artis after the patient was discharged on March 23, 2021 with only paracetamol despite a doubtful chest X‑ray and no complementary tests, later returning with bilateral pneumonia and dying on April 5 at Hospital de Valme.
  • In Ciudad Real, the Castilla‑La Mancha health service agreed to pay €160,000 to the parents of Valeria, a newborn who died in 2013 after more than five hours without proper fetal monitoring, ignored signs of hypotonía and hipoactividad, and an incorrectly placed intubation that damaged her lungs.
  • The Ciudad Real judgment noted that a simple chest radiograph would have exposed the misplaced tube; the infant was transferred to Hospital La Mancha Centro and died after a cardiorespiratory arrest.
  • Both families pursued their claims with the patient‑rights association El Defensor del Paciente, whose legal representatives handled the Seville case and negotiated the Ciudad Real payout.