Czech hospital in Domažlice sued again over patient's bedsores

A 63-year-old man is suing a hospital in the Czech town of Domažlice for compensation over severe bedsores that developed during his treatment there in 2022 and nearly cost him his life. The lawsuit is based on a court-appointed expert's report, which found that timely care could have significantly delayed the onset of the bedsores and reduced their severity.

“They would have left him to rot alive there”

The patient, named Benedikt, was transferred to the Domažlice hospital in May 2022 for follow-up care after five weeks of stroke treatment at the Pilsen Faculty Hospital. By early August his condition had sharply deteriorated due to worsening bedsores and infectious complications, and his relatives had him moved to a military hospital in Brno, where his life was saved at the last moment.

“It was a horrifying sight. He had several of the most severe bedsores — festering wounds down to the bone. The largest, on his back, measured 20 by 20 centimetres and was 10 centimetres deep. They would have left him to rot alive there — he was already treated as a likely goner, and the care reflected that,” said the patient's wife, Erika Benediktová. According to her, the largest wounds took up to three and a half years to heal.

Insurance company refused a settlement

The two sides were initially close to an out-of-court settlement, but the insurance company that would have had to reimburse the hospital for the settlement costs intervened: it commissioned its own expert opinion ruling out an amicable resolution, and its representative failed to appear in court at all. Judge Martin Souček said a face-to-face confrontation between the experts was necessary given their conflicting findings, and warned the hospital that dragging out the case would only bring it more negative publicity — not for the first time.

Already the hospital's third high-profile lawsuit

This is the third high-profile lawsuit against the Domažlice hospital in recent years: a court previously ordered it to pay 3.2 million crowns to the family of a child who died due to a doctor's negligence, and a further half a million crowns on top of the insurance payout to a patient who had a gauze swab left in his abdominal cavity during surgery.

In the past, courts have also punished the hospital's doctors for working while intoxicated, and a former head of surgery repeatedly drove drunk. The most serious case involved a former head of department who killed a colleague with an axe and attempted to kill and rape another woman — last November he received an exceptional 28-year sentence. The judge has set the next hearing in the bedsores lawsuit for November.

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Source: novinky.cz