On Monday, November 3, two doctors from La Anexion Hospital in Nicoya were accused before the Public Ministry for negligent injury due to an alleged case of malpractice.
The accusation, of which the Voice of Guanacaste has a copy, was filed by Nicoyan Rudy Obette Enriquez against doctors Freddy Arrieta and Ronald Ali.
According to Enriquez, Enriquez’ daughter, Samantha, was diagnosed with asthma for nearly three years, when she really had a diaphragmatic hernia, which forced her to lose her left lung because it wasn’t treated in time.
“The hernia was detectable from the moment she was born. If they had detected it from the first X-ray at seven months, the child would not have suffered as many crises as she suffered. When they saw her later at the Children’s Hospital, they told me that they had to operate on the girl’s hernia because she could die,” Enriquez explained.
According to information from the Nicoya District Attorney’s Office, the accusation has began to be processed under file 14-001270-414-PE and is in the investigation phase, which is known as a preparatory stage and consists of collecting evidence.
Although doctors Arrieta and Ali are not authorized to give statements, the director of the La Anexion Hospital, Anner Angulo, acknowledged that he was already aware of the accusation but would not give an opinion regarding the case, since it is in the investigation phase.
“The fact that an accusation is filed on a matter does not mean it is actually a case of malpractice. While it’s in the investigation process, I am not going to refer to the case,” said the director.
Angulo also stressed that until there is a judgment is rendered, neither of the doctors will be restricted in their labors.
This is the second case of complaints filed this week against doctors from the Nicoya hospital. On Monday, November 3, La Nacion published an article about an accusation made by La Anexion Hospital’s neonatologist, Hannia Ramirez, who manifested that there were “serious errors” by other pediatricians in the care of a baby that was born by emergency Caesarean on October 19 and died on Saturday, August 1st.
According to that article, Ramirez also accused Dr. Freddy Arrieta of sexual harassment, which was also alleged by Rudy Enriquez.
The History of Samantha’s Hernia
Samantha Enriquez was born on July 11, 2011 at the La Anexion Hospital in Nicoya and, according to her father, Rudy Enriquez, from an early age she began to have problems due to respiratory conditions.
In November of that year, according to Enriquez, Doctors Ali and Arrieta diagnosed his daughter as having asthma, so she was prescribed medications to fight the disease.
“My daughter wasn’t cured at all, so then I asked for X-rays to be taken to determine if the initial diagnosis was correct. About four X-rays were taken, and the X-rays reflected the diagnosis that we have right now (a hernia), but the doctors that were treating her at the time did not diagnosed the problem,” related Enriquez.
From 2011 until April 2014, Samantha was hospitalized three times and always received treatment for asthma. In May of this year, the girl was seen by another doctor whose last name is Sanchez, also at the Nicoya hospital, who referred her to the National Children’s Hospital and she was operated on for a left diaphragmatic hernia by Dr. Maynor Gonzalez.
The Voice of Guanacaste tried to obtain the version of Dr. Gonzalez, but he said he could not give statements to the press. In addition, attempts were made to communicate with the public relations department of the Children’s Hospital, but calls were never answered.
According to Enriquez, doctors at the Children’s Hospital explained to him that during the operation the girl lost her left lung, which would not have happened if she had been treated in time.
“I have a lot of pain and as much as my daughter suffered and we have suffered as parents, they’ve had a lot of people who have seen their children die due to poor performance of doctors,” Enriquez commented.
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