Doctors convicted of infecting babies: Two go to prison, two to house arrest

The doctors accused of infecting five babies at the General Hospital in Bjelopolje were sentenced to several months in prison, two of which will be in prison, while two will be under house arrest.

Tomislav Jeremić and Haka Tahirović were sentenced to seven months in prison, and Zvonko Puletić and Jela Cimbaljević to six months of house arrest.

The indictment accused the doctors of a serious offense against human health, because they did not prevent an outbreak of infection in the maternity hospital in November 2014.

The indictment presented that the defendant Tomislav Jeremić, as the director of the General Hospital in Bijelo Polje, Zoran Puletić as the head of the Gynecology and Obstetrics Department and Haka Tahirović, as the head of the Children's Department and the Department of Neonatology, and Jela Cimbaljević as a pediatric specialist, did not act according to the regulations determine measures to suppress and prevent dangerous infectious diseases.

The defendant Jeremić did not act in accordance with the regulations in the hospital and formed a team for the supervision, prevention and suppression of hospital infections. The defendants Jeremić, Puletć and Tahirović also violated regulations by not taking appropriate hygiene measures in the Gynecology-Obstetrics Department and the Department of Neonatology, by not performing regular bacteriological control of the environment in these Departments, nor by ordering swabs to be taken from work surfaces, devices, equipment and sanitary materials, as well as sanitary control of employees in the Departments.

During admission, the indictment further states, Dr. Puletić did not order pregnant women to take vaginal swabs before giving birth. All of this led to a poor hygienic-epidemiological status in the Gynecology-Obstetrics Department and the Department of Neonatology, which led to infection caused by pathogenic bacteria and the development of a dangerous infectious disease - neonatal sepsis in five newborns, one of whom died. Despite the two recorded cases of dangerous infectious disease, the defendants did not immediately take measures to suppress the hospital infection, so work continued in the wards under the same hygienic conditions.

In the period from November 02.11.2014, 12.11.2014 to November XNUMX, XNUMX, the defendant Cimbaljević, in her capacity as a specialist in pediatrics, did not act in accordance with the regulations because after admitting two newborns and suspecting, and later diagnosing, a dangerous infectious disease, she did not report it .

Due to the non-reporting of the occurrence of neonatal sepsis, work continued at the Department of Neonatology, where three more newborns were later admitted. All three newborns also fell ill, from a dangerous infectious disease.

Following the diagnosis of neonatal sepsis in one newborn, death occurred in the Clinical Center of Montenegro, where the babies were referred for further treatment.