Global Courant
Once again, the doctor Aníbal Rúben Lotocki (53) is in the eye of the storm due to the serious consequences of the surgery he performed on Silvina Luna 12 years ago. Now the model is hospitalized in intensive care for that malpractice. Despite her record, which includes a prison sentence, she continues to attend.
The best-known legal case against Lotocki is the one initiated by Luna after he suffered methacrylate poisoning, which was placed on his buttocks in 2011. The substance entered his bloodstream and caused a chronic condition of hypercalcemia (high level of calcium ) and kidney failure.
The model had to be cured of a bacterial infection to be able to receive a kidney transplant, but her health worsened and she is admitted to intensive care, sedated and on a respirator. She is now fighting for her life.
In February 2022, the Criminal and Correctional Oral Court No. 28 sentenced the doctor to four years in prison, considering him responsible for the serious injuries suffered by four of his patients after having performed various surgical procedures on them.
The victims and plaintiffs, apart from Luna, were Gabriela Trenchi, Stefanía Xipolitakis and Pamela Sosa. Likewise, the doctor from Misiones was given a five-year disqualification from practicing medicine.
But then if Lotocki is sentenced to prison and disqualified from working, why does he keep doing it? It is that the judge Carlos Rengel Mirat who sentenced him rejected the request that the prosecution had made to temporarily disqualify him until the sentence is final. And since he is not firm, the doctor continues to work.
“He did not comply with the slightest rules of professional practice: he attended places without authorization, with products that he could not use and even wanted to hold his patients responsible for the harmful consequences of their own criminal actions,” prosecutor Sandro said at the trial. Abraldes that he had requested seven years and nine months in prison.
But Lotocki’s record did not end there. 20 days ago, the National Criminal and Correctional Court No. 60 prosecuted him without preventive detention as the author of the “simple homicide with eventual intent” of the patient Rodolfo Christian Zárate (50) on April 16, 2021, after complications from a scheduled surgical intervention.
In addition, Judge Luis Schelgel ordered an embargo on the doctor’s assets for 4,804,700 million pesos and provided that “he must appear personally in court every 15 days, the first and third Friday of each month or the following business day.”
On April 15, 2021, the patient underwent liposculpture and dermolipectomy, for the sum of $6,500 at the “Cemeco” clinic, located in Caballito. The surgery consisted of the removal of tissues in different parts of the body, such as “neck, shoulders, pectorals, arms, armpits, front face of the abdomen, pelvis, lumbar region, and buttocks.”
According to the file “due to the impact that these multiple approaches can cause, added to the general condition of the patient (he had had COVID and had grade II Diabetis Mellitus), it would have been advisable to carry out the different procedures at different stages or surgical acts” .
In parallel, it was established that during the operation, Lotocki “left the operating room for approximately forty minutes, since he had a virtual hearing with his lawyer, in which he would have left his assistants in charge of the intervention. He then would have returned to do the plication and closure ”.
As if this were not enough, in May 2021, Chamber IV of the National Criminal and Correctional Appeals Chamber confirmed Lotocki’s prosecution for alteration of evidence in criminal proceedings, although the investigation continued to determine the responsibility of the doctor in Zarate’s death.
The fact that the doctor is prosecuted for “simple homicide with eventual intent”, one of the crimes that provides for one of the most serious sanctions in the Criminal Code, makes clear his willingness to operate despite representing that Zárate could die.
Regarding the doctor’s decision to perform the surgery, the judge explained that “despite being aware of the multiple risks to which he was subjecting his patient, Lotocki went beyond what is known as an objective violation of the duty of care in the surgical field, and not only foresaw the possibility of Zárate’s death but also accepted it and acted according to their own interests”.
Those interests were “to operate it at all costs before a possible restriction (closed season) due to the pandemic and to ensure that they finish collecting their fees (perceived in the most absolute informality)”.
The celebrity allegations against Lotocki continue. The former participant of the reality show Fran Mariano was hospitalized after the operation carried out by the doctor with the risk of having his foot amputated.
“From his mouth I found out in full court what was inside. I had agreed to inject myself with plasma in the buttocks, but since I had been feeling very bad I found out through studies that they had put industrial polymer on me. It is plastic, ” reported the complainant.
MG
