Hamburgers ordered from Maradona's hospital room days after brain surgery
Seven health professionals have been charged with medical negligence in the former Argentina captain's death on November 25, 2020 at the age of 60. A charge of intentional homicide, if proved, carries a sentence of between 8 to 25 years in prison.
'Anything was allowed inside the room. It was embarrassing what happened there. I take responsibility,' Fernando Villarejo, the director of the intensive care unit at Olivos Clinic on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, testified during the trial.
However, Villarejo claimed helplessness against Maradona's inner coterie, most prominently neurosurgeon Leopoldo Luque and psychiatrist Agustina Cosachov, whom he referred to as the 'king and the queen'.
Luque was Maradona's personal physician for the last four years of his life, while Cosachov prescribed medication that Maradona took until the time of his death. The two decided on Maradona's post-operative care, Villarejo told the court.
Maradona had surgery at the medical facility for a hematoma that formed between his skull and brain and stayed in intensive care between November 4-11, 2020.
'The situation in the clinic, indeed in the recovery room, was certainly unmanageable. In the recovery room, there were up to nine strangers, and anyone could have brought something, from drugs to a hamburger,' Villarejo was quoted as saying by Naples daily Il Mattino.
Luque and Cosachov are also said to have proposed that Maradona's care continue in a private home in the town of Tigre, almost 40 km from the Argentine capital.
'I didn't agree — it wasn't the right place. I told Luque all this,' said Villarejo, adding that Maradona should have recovered in a rehabilitation clinic rather than in a private home.
His testimony also alleged that Maradona's surgery went ahead without any preoperative examinations, and that a few days after the operation, Luque ordered him to sedate him to 'try to detoxify' him from his drinking habits and because he was an 'unmanageable patient'.
He added that Maradona's family agreed to the sedation 'out of ignorance or because they trusted (his father's people).'
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