The case of a girl named Mia who died in a San Antonio hospital

In June this year and in the midst of the syncytial outbreak, a virus that mainly affects children under two years of age, health care networks were particularly stressed by the demand for the winter virus – averaging 100,000 pediatric critical beds. The total occupancy number recorded was 93. .5%: 92.7% in the public system and 95.5% in the private system – and it was in that context that the case of Mia came to light, a two-month-old baby who died because he was not transferred to a pediatric bed. Claudio Vicuña Hospital of San AntonioIn the Valparaiso area.

On Tuesday morning, five months after the incident, the girl’s parents filed a complaint for the crime of negligence in her death, in which five people have been named as accused. “Against one of the people it is a case of culpable homicide, because the negligence is so great that it fits the figure, and for the other four people it is for the offense of negligence under section 491 of the Penal Code, which is a special type of is half of.” Health officials who commit crimes,” Apiro San Martín, the lawyer representing the family, said today.

Mia died on Tuesday, June 6, of pneumonia in a San Antonio hospital because she could not be transferred to a health care facility that had a pediatric ICU bed: according to what was reported at the time, The healthcare network had no beds available in the region, nor in Rancagua or Santiago, so the only option was to transfer him to the Arica Regional Hospital, more than two thousand kilometers away.

According to her parents at the time, during that weekend they noticed that their daughter had an unusual cough so they decided to go to the hospital, where the child was admitted on Saturday, June 3.

“We decided to take our child because he had a cough, nothing more serious than that. We took him on Saturday and they did the same thing they did to our child, he got worse until he passed out. According to reports, when she was admitted she had bronchitis, the bronchitis turned into pneumonia and she contracted syncytial virus,” father Nicolas Olivares told media at the time.

During her stay at the health facility, the child shared a room with two other children who were hospitalized due to syncytial virus. According to her father, this would have harmed Mia and ultimately worsened her health.

The two-month-old baby developed pneumonia due to the virus and by Sunday her case was already extremely critical, so she needed to be kept in a critical unit, however, there were no ICU beds left in the hospital. Given this situation, local health authorities began the process of transferring the minor, but the only bed available was in Arica, so the child eventually died at the health center.

Regarding the case, Fernando Arros, who was undersecretary of the Healthcare Network at the time, assured that the pediatric team at the San Antonio hospital “carried out all the work, all the interventions on a serious patient,” and in addition, the authority said that All efforts were made to find a place in a private center in the area, but without success.

Questions about the case immediately began to grow, following news of the infant’s death, Health Minister Ximena Aguilera was sought for advice about the management and conversion of beds, particularly because Clinica Las Condes (CLC) said they had not been contacted to check availability of hospitalization space. In view of this, the Head of the Portfolio indicated at the time that this was due to the existence of a decision of the Comptroller’s Office that prohibited the procurement of services from the said establishment.

In response, the Comptroller’s Office refuted their statements, indicating that there was no decision in this regard, so the Ministry of Health corrected the position, indicating that it was an “involuntary confusion” and “effectively violates the CLC’s mandate.” The inability to sign “a contract with the state for a period of two years is the result of a declaration by the labor justice system for a verified violation of workers’ rights.”

Subsequently, Undersecretary Araos admitted that Clínica Las Condes had not been consulted about whether it had the availability of pediatric beds even though it had previously said so, which is why he indicated that A brief inquiry was ordered.

“We were able to verify that there were no call records at Clinica Las Condes. Given this situation, I have decided to take appropriate administrative measures to clarify the facts and reasons, aimed at clarifying why it was not called,” he said on June 13. During the same press conference under The Secretary was asked who was responsible for this situation. However, the authority assured that they have conducted an investigation to determine the said responsibilities.

He said, “We have decided to conduct a summary investigation to clarify the facts as to why this situation occurred, and we have also conducted an immediate administrative audit with the aim of conducting a 100% review of the process to identify and improve ” Following this and under numerous questions about his management, Fernando Arros resigned as Undersecretary of the Aid Network.