Last week, on July 16, the appellate panel of the Fergana regional court made a final decision regarding the case of a surgeon that attracted significant public attention. This was reported by Upl.uz.
Earlier, on May 6, the Kuva district court had sentenced the surgeon to four years in prison, and the appellate court did not change this verdict. This was reported by Gazeta.uz.
According to court documents, the defendant was the head of the surgical department at the Republican Specialized Scientific-Practical Endocrinology Center in Fergana. From September 9 to October 25, 2024, he was on unpaid leave, and his duties were temporarily assigned to another doctor, D. R.
The incident that led to the court proceedings occurred on October 18.
On that day, the patient's children brought their mother to the center. The on-duty doctor D. R. identified that the patient had severe type II diabetes, decompensation stage, neuroischemic diabetic foot syndrome, as well as a post-operative fracture of the left knee bone.
Despite being officially on leave, the head of the department came to work and unilaterally excluded D. R. from working with the patient. He justified this by stating that D. R. was insufficiently experienced.
According to court materials, the surgeon decided to amputate the patient's left leg at the thigh level without legal medical indications. The operation plan was formalized in medical documents, but the signature was forged in the name of the temporary doctor.
Additionally, the defendant changed the composition of the surgical team without consulting the center's management. A surgeon without the authority for complex surgical procedures and a medical university student were involved.
During the surgical procedure, without the patient's consent or that of her representatives, the surgeon made a mistake and amputated the healthy right leg instead of the affected left leg. Realizing his mistake, he later amputated the left leg as well.
As a result of the two severe surgical procedures, the elderly woman's body could not withstand, and she passed away on November 7. The first-instance court assessed the surgeon's actions under Article 116, Part 3 of the Criminal Code of Uzbekistan - performing professional duties negligently, resulting in death, and sentenced him to four years in prison.
Moreover, he was deprived of the right to hold managerial and medical positions in the healthcare system for three years. In the appeal, the defendant and his lawyer emphasized their complete innocence, claimed that there was no criminal composition, and that the patient's death was not directly related to the surgeries, requesting an acquittal.
The patient's legal representative R. I. filed a counter-complaint, requesting to reclassify the surgeon's actions to more serious types of crimes. He demanded the inclusion of special cruelty and abuse of authority cases under the articles.
Additionally, he filed a civil lawsuit for 28.995 million soums in material damages and 350 million soums in moral damages. The appellate court, after hearing the parties' evidence and reviewing the case documents, found no grounds to change the initial verdict.
The complaints were not satisfied, and the court's decision was upheld.
