Medics cleared for death in childbirth
An Athens court yesterday cleared a gynecologist, a nurse and two midwives of the negligent manslaughter of a 37-year-old woman who died after delivering her third child nearly five years ago. A court riot ensued. Relatives of Klimentini Makri, who died in the Thriasio Hospital west of Athens in December 1999, reacted to the verdict by attacking Dr Michalis Avatagellos, Ioannis Zouganaros, Theodora Tikeridou and Androniki Katsiou in the courtroom, throwing plastic bottles of water and scuffling until extra police were summoned to intervene. The four defendants also had faced charges of doctoring hospital documents to conceal the reason for Makri’s death which the head of the hospital’s gynecological clinic, Paraskevas Eleftheriadas, had found to be «rupture of the womb.» Elfetheriadas was found dead, a suspected suicide, shortly after Makri’s death.
