Slaviša Knežević from Białystok said that today he and his wife Danka should have celebrated their son's tenth birthday, instead of seeking justice for his death for a decade.
He told Vijesti after the closing arguments in the High Court of Bielsko-Biała, where the former head of gynecology, Dr. Zvonko Puletić, and neonatologist, Dr. Haka Tahirović, are facing charges for "failing to comply with health regulations" in connection with the infection of five babies, one of whom died.
In the meantime, due to the death, the proceedings against the director of that institution, Dr. Tomislav Jeremic, and the pediatrician, Dr. Jela Cimbaljević, were suspended.
The verdict before the panel of judge Dragan Dašić will be pronounced on November 20.
The father of the deceased baby, Slaviša Knežević, claims that the doctor's guilt for the case from November 2014 has been established XNUMX% and that the injured parents expect prison sentences.
"Doctors should be held accountable for my baby's death, and I hope they will be held accountable and punished, because my child is gone," he emphasized.
The lawyer of the injured families, Hamid Ganjola, reiterated in his closing words that all the evidence presented at the earlier and this trial proved unequivocally that Puletić and Tahirović are guilty of the crime the court is charging them with.
On the other hand, Puletić's lawyer, Nikola Medojević, said that the acquittal was the only correct decision, because, as he claims, Puletić did not violate any obligation, nor did he violate any regulations: forced to suffer the consequences of something he neither concealed nor could have prevented".
He pointed out that the previously amended indictment introduced an illogicality, according to which neonatal sepsis infection is allegedly a dangerous infectious disease, although according to the law at the time it was not on the list of infectious diseases, "so the accusation is baselessly trying to apply some analogy whose application is excluded by the principle of legality".
He also referred to the part of the indictment accusing Puletić of not ordering a proper bacteriological control and taking swabs in October 2014, emphasizing that the controls were carried out regularly, that the control was in April of that year, then at his written request on November 11, 2014 . with findings that were neat and sterile, and no pathogenic bacteria were found even on November 15.
Medojević noted that the accusation's thesis that Puletić "did not order regular sanitary control of the employees of the gynecology department" is also incorrect, because that evidence exists in the Hospital's documentation...
As for the part of the accusation that Puletić 'did not order vaginal swabs to be taken by women in labor when they were admitted to the ward for childbirth', which he allegedly was obliged to do and which should have been the practice, as claimed by the medical expert from Belgrade, Medojević said that it is almost tiresome to repeatedly point out the failure of the indictment in this regard, because such a practice does not exist either in Montenegro, in the environment or in the health systems of developed countries, adding that the criminal offense of 'failing to comply with regulations...' does not exist if there is no regulation, decisions, orders or orders about it.
Puletić said that he is not guilty of the crime he was accused of and that for ten years he has been suffering the consequences of something for which he is in no way responsible.
Tahirović's legal representative, lawyer Drago Konatar, said that the indictment was unproven on all points and that the prosecution was trying to maintain it..."The prosecution thus equated the epidemic, sepsis, neonatal sepsis and hospital infection," he said.
Tahirović said that the focus of this trial is unique, "because doctors are being tried for not reporting suspected neonatal sepsis".
"The prosecutor equates neonatal sepsis with infectious sepsis, then classifies intrahospital infection as dangerous infectious diseases, neonatal sepsis as the most severe form of infectious disease-hospital infection, although these concepts are covered by different codes in ICD X, which made the accusation completely illogical and the court process unnecessary and long", said Tahirović.
In the first verdict from 2017, doctors Jeremić and Tahirović were sentenced to seven months in prison each, and Puletić and Cimbaljević to six months of house arrest.
After several invalid verdicts, the Supreme Court ordered a retrial.
Bonus video:
