The main hospital center in Asturias is going to review and improve the protocol in the face of so-called "adverse events" when bad news has to be given.

The

Central University Hospital of Asturias

(HUCA) assumes this commitment after the public complaint of a nurse with more than 30 years of experience who claims to have received "inhuman" treatment after the death of her husband, who died during a surgical operation.

These "infrequent" events, explain sources from the Asturian

Health Ministry

, "need adequate communication and support for families when they receive 'bad news'".

As a result of this case, "the necessary improvements" of the existing procedure will be reviewed, expanded and sought," they indicate, "properly identifying who, when, how and where this care should be carried out, which causes a great emotional impact."

The events occurred on April 2.

Ignacio Pérez-Moya

was undergoing a liver transplant to avoid problems in the future because "his health status was good" acknowledges

Cristina Fernández-Coronado González

, his widow, in the letter she sent to the media.

The operation began at 9:30 p.m.

As they had been called urgently for the transplant, her children were on the way, so she was alone in the waiting room for relatives.

The intervention, which according to her she had been told "would not have major complications", would be long, about 7 or 8 hours, so they recommended that she go home.

At three in the morning he received a call from the hospital.

- Hey, is it Ignacio's wife?

Approach the operating room that there are problems.

When she arrived, they asked her if she had come alone and the person who spoke to her, whose name and position she does not mention, told her: "Well, look, there were problems. It was a very complex transplant, there were complications. Nothing could be done."

"It was about you" he recalls in the letter.

"I lowered my mask and asked him, why do you treat me like you, you don't know me? I had worked in that hospital for more than 20 years. Cristina wonders if you also have to treat yourself to keep your distance, even in these situations, even if you are talking to a colleague, even if you are telling her that her husband has died unexpectedly.

He came to tell him at that time that "a transplant was something very serious and that people thought it was like going for a walk."

Cristina only asked then to be able to enter to say goodbye to him.

Her response was: "It's not in the protocol."

That person left immediately without "sorry, condolences or goodbye."

"Go home and wait for the funeral home" they told him.

The woman remembers that it was night, everything was silent and dark, they had just told her that her husband had died and no one came to talk to her, to comfort her, to sit by her side while her family arrived.

The only support she says she found was the wall.

Until six hours later she could not see her husband, already in the funeral home.

Since that day, no one who participated in her husband's intervention has contacted her and has not yet received a report of what happened.

"She's a disgrace," he says.

"As a wife, apart from the deep pain I have been through such a cruel and inhuman situation in the worst moments of my life that I have no words."

Cristina only wants her case to be known to prevent this type of situation from happening again.

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