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Doctors in botched cataract operations case charged

Two doctors were charged in writing and their case is expected to go to court next week after a patient died and seven others suffered serious post-surgery complications following a cataract surgery at a Nicosia hospital in 2020, police said on Thursday.

Police spokesman Christos Andreou told the Cyprus News Agency that the case has been brought before the legal service and the two doctors were charged in writing on Wednesday.

The case is expected to be submitted to court sometime next week, with each facing eight misdemeanour charges relating to reckless and negligent acts.

The article in the criminal code on which they are charged states that whoever “acts in a reckless, hasty or negligent manner while performing a medical or surgical procedure, with the potential to endanger human life or cause bodily harm,” is guilty of a misdemeanour.

In a tweet the previous day, attorney-general Giorgos Savvides said police had been instructed “to submit criminal cases against two people in relation to incidents of contamination of patients during eye surgeries”.

An investigation, which lasted over a year, was launched at the hospital after a group of eight patients, aged 60 to 80 years old were infected with pseudomonas endophthalmitis infection, an antibiotic resistant bacteria that lives in the back of the eye and damages the nerve tissue right after a cataract surgery at the hospital.

Five of the patients who underwent cataract surgery in October 2020 each had to have one of their eyes removed after corrective procedures to prevent the infection from spreading to the brain.

One of the patients died, according to a relative who told media that after the corrective surgery, the patient had to return to the hospital.

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