Global Courant
Mario Rene Bolaños Porras, urologist; Dany Ferlandi Chocooj Coy, surgeon with a specialty in video laparoscopy; Ángel David Valdez Vargas, urologist, and Orlando Rodas Pernillo, pathologist, face criminal proceedings for the crime of illegal disposal of human organs or tissues.
The four professionals are linked to the illegal removal of a kidney from a patient who was diagnosed with removal of the adrenal gland, to justify the intervention.
The 62-year-old woman who reported them arrived at a healthcare center in the country’s capital to undergo a surgical intervention that she required after a spinal fibroid was detected that needed to be removed. Days later, she felt that something was not right with the operation and she returned to the clinic for check-up.
The information she was given left her baffled. They did not intervene to remove her medullary fibroid, but rather they had removed a kidney and without her consent.
On May 22, 2022, the investigation began, according to the MP, and the capture of the doctors occurred in March 2023.
The MP reported on September 24 that two days earlier the prosecutor’s office for crimes against life managed to get the Criminal Court of First Instance with Specialized Jurisdiction in Human Trafficking Crimes of Guatemala to issue a conviction of one year in prison through the special procedure. acceptance of charges against Mario René Bolaños for the crime of negligent injuries, as well as one year of professional disqualification as an accessory penalty.
According to the investigative body, the hearing for dignified reparation was scheduled for September 27. The prosecutor’s office presented sufficient evidence for Bolaños to accept the charges brought by the MP, the official statement cites.
According to the investigation, Bolaños stole a healthy kidney from a patient. On September 13, the MP requested the dismissal of the doctor Orlando Rodas Pernillo, while the medical professional Dany Ferlandi Chocooj Coy asked to be tried by the figure of acceptance of charges.
Chocooj Coy was sentenced to one year in prison for negligent wounding, but the sentence was reduced to six months. He was also sentenced to one year of disqualification.
In the hearings against the four doctors, the MP presented chats and messages that they had exchanged with each other.
“I think it was the right kidney that we removed.” That was one of the messages sent by one of the four doctors involved in the complaint for the removal of a kidney from a patient, with which the prosecution claimed that they were aware of the error and that they had tried to hide evidence.
The Public Ministry (MP) points out that it was medical malpractice, according to the exchange of chat messages that were revealed on Tuesday, March 14, 2023 during a court hearing.
Sergio López, from the Prosecutor’s Office Against Human Trafficking, reconstructed by date the series of events in the case, from when the patient was hospitalized prior to surgery on February 23, 2022, to the messages that the doctors exchanged during the two months. following.
The doctors involved were Orlando Rodas Pernillo, a pathologist who analyzed the extracted organ and who stated that it was a healthy kidney. Ángel David Valdez Vargas, who was in the operating room.
In addition, Bolaños and Choocoj were linked, the latter two being the first to notice the events, according to the messages that the prosecution has as evidence in the case, with which it maintains that both tried to hide evidence.
“I think it was the right kidney that we removed, reviewing the images and the study. I didn’t want to say anything about the room because people get rowdy quickly. We will have to wait for the pathology and give him an educational plan. We’ll talk when you’re free,” Choocoj told Bolaños one day after the operation on February 24, 2022.
