A Krak\u00f3w court has delivered a final, binding verdict acquitting most of the physicians tried over the 2006 death of Jerzy Ziobro, concluding a two-decade legal battle. <\/p>\n
“Prof. Dariusz Dudek, prof. Jacek Dubiel, prof. Katarzyna Stryczkiewicz and Dr. Andrzej Kmita are not guilty of the death of Jerzy Ziobro,” ruled the court after a 20-year legal battle waged by the Ziobro family, as reported by “Wyborcza”.<\/p>\n
Thursday’s verdict is final and binding. Both the defense attorneys and the prosecution had sought acquittals, with the prosecution modifying its stance during the evidentiary proceedings to state that it was impossible to unequivocally determine whether the medical staff had committed errors.<\/p>\n
The Krak\u00f3w Regional Court upheld the acquittals of former cardiology department head Prof. Jacek D., on-duty physician Katarzyna S., and monitored ward head Andrzej K., while overturning the judgment and discontinuing proceedings against Dariusz D., former department doctor and deputy head of the Hemodynamics Laboratory.<\/p>\n
The court acknowledged that Dariusz D. unintentionally exposed the patient to direct danger to life, noting that he was responsible for incorrect diagnosis, failing to consult the case with other physicians, and deciding on inappropriate treatment.<\/p>\n
Regarding the other three doctors from the Krak\u00f3w University Hospital\u2014Jacek D., Andrzej K., and Katarzyna S.\u2014the court rejected the arguments of the deceased widow’s legal representative, Krystyna Kornicka-Ziobro, who argued among other things that the court of first instance had lacked impartiality.<\/p>\n
The court noted that the case was exceptionally difficult partly due to the identities of the parties involved, featuring the family of a prominent politician and Minister of Justice on one side, and high-ranking medical professors on the other.<\/p>\n
Addressing allegations against the first-instance judge and expert witnesses, the court stated that while certain behaviors of the judge might not have matched his judicial rank, such flaws could not be regarded as gross negligence, given the unprecedented complexity of the case.<\/p>\n
Jerzy Ziobro had been treated at the University Hospital in Krak\u00f3w starting in June 2006 and died on July 2, 2006, following complications from cardiac procedures, prompting his family to accuse the doctors of medical malpractice.<\/p>\n
After the prosecution twice discontinued the investigation, the family filed a private indictment in 2011 against Jacek D., Dariusz D., Katarzyna S., and Andrzej K. The District Court for Krak\u00f3w-\u015ar\u00f3dmie\u015bcie discontinued proceedings in 2012, but after appeals to the regional court and the Supreme Court, the case returned to the first instance, and the prosecution joined the plaintiffs in 2016.<\/p>\n
The defendants were acquitted by the district court in 2017, leading to appeals by the public prosecutor and subsidiary plaintiffs, with the appellate proceedings commencing in 2018 before the Krak\u00f3w Regional Court.<\/p>\n
In 2022, the court requested supplementary expert opinions from the University Center of Legal Medicine in Lausanne, which reported back after roughly four years, prompting the resumption of the trial in June of this year.<\/p>\n
Swiss experts assessed that according to global guidelines, bypass surgery would have been a more favorable choice for the patient than the coronary angioplasty and stent placement chosen by the Krak\u00f3w doctors, though they noted that treatment selection ultimately rests with the attending physician and that high bleeding risks associated with the patient’s therapy could have influenced the decision.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Krak\u00f3w court has delivered a final, binding verdict acquitting most of the physicians tried over the 2006 death of Jerzy Ziobro, concluding a two-decade legal battle. Final Court Verdict and Acquittals “Prof. Dariusz Dudek, prof. Jacek Dubiel, prof. Katarzyna Stryczkiewicz and Dr. Andrzej Kmita are not guilty of the death of Jerzy Ziobro,” ruled […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-and-law"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15676"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15676\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}