Vatican hospital calls AP investigation into care a ‘hoax’
ROME » When doctors and nurses at the Vatican’s showcase children’s hospital complained in 2014 that corners were being cut and medical protocols ignored, the Vatican responded by ordering up a secret in-house investigation. The diagnosis: The original mission of “the pope’s hospital” had been lost and was “today more aimed at profit than on caring for children.”
Three years later, an Associated Press investigation found that Bambino Gesu (Baby Jesus) Pediatric Hospital did indeed shift its focus in ways big and small under its past administration, which governed from 2008 to 2015. As the hospital expanded services and tried to make a money-losing Vatican enterprise turn a profit, children sometimes paid the price.
Among the AP’s findings:
• Overcrowding and poor hygiene contributed to deadly infection, including one 21-month superbug outbreak in the cancer ward that killed eight children.
• To save money, disposable equipment and other materials were at times used improperly, with a one-time order of cheap needles breaking when injected into tiny veins.
• Doctors were so pressured to maximize operatingroom turnover that patients were sometimes brought out of anesthesia too quickly.
Some of the issues — such as early awakening and the focus on profits — had been identified in 2014 by the Vatican-authorized task force of current and former hospital doctors, nurses, administrators and outsiders, who spent three months gathering information and interviewing staff off-campus. The AP corroborated those findings through interviews with more than a dozen current and former Bambino Gesu employees, as well as patients, their families and health officials. The AP reviewed medical records, civil court rulings, hospital and Vatican emails, and five years of union complaints.
Vincenzo Di Ciommo Laurora, a retired Bambino Gesu epidemiologist, described the hospital’s past culture this way: “The more you do to a patient, the more money you bring in. You have to produce, produce, produce.”
Bambino Gesu denied the AP’s findings in a statement Monday, calling the AP report a “hoax” and threatening legal action. It said the AP report “contained false, dated and gravely defamatory accusations and conjectures that had been denied by an independent report of the Holy See.”
That report, by an American team, spent three days at the hospital in 2015 and “disproved” all the allegations in the first report, except that there wasn’t enough space.
The Vatican, for its part, denied there were any “serious threats” to children at the hospital, though it said it welcomed efforts to improve care, “including reports of practices that might be below standard.”
Vatican spokesman Greg Burke acknowledged the Vatican had investigated staff complaints at the hospital but also pointed to the follow-up three-day clinical visit that determined they were “unfounded.”
“No hospital is perfect, but it is false and unjust to suggest that there are serious threats to the health of children at Bambino Gesu,” he said.
Arthur Caplan, head of medical ethics at NYU School of Medicine, said the problems detailed by the AP were extremely worrying if true: “These are inexcusable violations of children’s rights.” He called for an “independent audit by child health care experts not connected in any way to either the Vatican or even Italy.”
Founded in 1869 to treat poor children, Bambino Gesu (Baby Jesus) is now the main pediatric hospital serving southern Italy. In 2015, the 607-bed facility performed over 26,000 surgical procedures — more than a third of all children’s operations nationwide. It draws top-notch surgeons to work there and celebrity visits, including U.S. First Lady Melania Trump in May.
Perched on a hillside just up the road from Vatican City, the hospital’s main campus enjoys extraterritorial status, making the Italian taxpayerfunded institution immune to the surprise inspections that other Italian hospitals undergo.
The Italian health ministry certifies Bambino Gesu for its research activities and in 2015 reported it had “characteristics of excellence.” Provided with AP’s findings, the health ministry promised to investigate.
The employees who spoke to the AP requested anonymity, fearing they would lose their jobs. Out of concern for the children, they said, they broke what the hospital’s union has called the “omerta,” the Italian code of silence.
Staff members told the AP that some of the conditions have improved since the administration changed in early 2015. The new leadership, they said, focuses less on volume and has more respect for following protocols.
Within weeks of the task force report being delivered to the Vatican in April 2014, member Coleen McMahon — an American nurse — grew impatient and emailed the group’s coordinator that she planned to press for action. He told her to stand down.