Damaged-heart-transplant boy's condition 'rapidly deteriorating'

(ANSA) - ROME, FEB 20 - The condition of a two-year-old boy who had a damaged heart transplanted into him in December has deteriorated rapidly over the last 12 hours, Naples' Monaldi hospital said on Friday. On Wednesday a committee of experts from all over Italy decided that he should not have another transplant, even though a donor organ had become available, because his condition was too bad. The boy, whose name is Domenico, will now receive palliative care. A meeting took place on Friday featuring the hospital's doctors, the family's doctor, the boy's mother and her lawyer to decide on his treatment. The hospital said the boy will not be taken off life-support but other non-necessary therapies will be stopped. The hospital said it proposed "a series of interventions to avoid administering therapies that are no longer useful for the young patient's clinical condition. "A process, therefore, aimed at avoiding the risk of therapeutic obstinacy," it said. "Only strictly life-saving therapies will be administered, as part of a process aimed at a progressive de-escalation of other therapeutic interventions". Criminal prosecutors are investigating the case and six health professionals are being probed. They are looking into whether the heart was damaged because the refrigerated container used to transport it from Bolzano to Naples was not up to standard or because dry ice was used to conserve its condition instead of ordinary ice. Premier Giorgia Meloni called the boy's mother, Patrizia Mercolino, on Tuesday to voice her solidarity and sympathies. (ANSA). Read article...

By ANSA