08 May 2008, 12:20
Astrakhan Region: doctor guilty of child's arm amputation sentenced to three years of conditional custody
A court in the Astrakhan Region has appointed three years of conditional imprisonment to the doctor who had refused to provide free-of-charge hospitalization to a seven-year-old boy with a compound arm fracture; with the result that later surgeons had to amputate the arm.
Pavel Belozerov, a doctor at the Harabalin District Hospital, has been found guilty of a failure to render help to a patient without any valid excuse. As an additional punishment, he was forbidden to be engaged in any medical practice for three years.
The court has established that on April 22 last year a family from Uzbekistan came to stay as guests to the Astrakhan Region. During a walk the boy fell down from a fence and traumatized his arm; his parents immediately brought him to the district hospital.
"The injured child was examined by on duty surgeon Pavel Belozerov, a category I physician with 32 years of professional experience, who diagnosed "an open displaced fracture of both bones of the left forearm," runs the statement of the General Prosecutor's Office as quoted by the RIA "Novosti".
"Belozerov asked the boy's father to present a medical policy. After learning that the patient had no documents of the kind, the doctor broke the existing legislation that ensures free-of-charge emergency medical aid (including to foreigners), and asked 4500 roubles as payment for the boy's treatment," the General Prosecutor's Office informs.
However, the parents had no this sum of money and had to render assistance to their child by themselves, meanwhile his condition was worsening every day.
