A father who believes his son died as a result of gross medical negligence at an Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social (IMSS) hospital says he is finally seeing some light at the end of a long tunnel after a bruising four-year legal battle.
Sergio Gallardo Ramos filed around 100 denuncias (complaints) against personnel at the public health care provider following the death of his 15-year-old son Roberto in January 2010 at the IMSS Pediatric Hospital in Guadalajara. All were thrown out until last week when a federal judge ruled in his favor and issued arrest warrants for 16 IMSS doctors on charges of involuntary manslaughter.
The doctors have made their declarations and had their fingerprints taken at the Third District Court while their lawyers this week filed injunctions (amparos) that will keep them out of jail.
Gallardo Ramos accepts that it is unlikely that any of the doctors will serve prison time, but says he would like to see them stripped of their medical licenses.
Roberto was admitted to the pediatric unit of the IMSS hospital in November 2009 after being diagnosed with an acute asthmatic crisis. At first, doctors believed that he had contracted the H1NI flu but that diagnosis was quickly discarded. As Roberto’s condition worsened, he was placed in intensive care, where over the next 16 days he underwent seven abdominal surgeries.