Seven doctors formed a network in Romania that harvested implantable cardiac defibrillators from recently deceased patients and transplanted them into 238 other patients who believed they were receiving new devices, charges filed at the country’s highest court have said.
“A large proportion of the interventions to implant cardiac devices, including those extracted from deceased patients, were not necessary,” alleged a report filed by prosecutors with the High Court of Cassation and Justice in Bucharest. Instead they were based on “fictitious diagnoses” or the administration of drugs that triggered cardiac symptoms so as to justify surgical intervention, the report claimed.
Police have arrested Dan Tesloianu, a cardiologist at one of Romania’s five university teaching hospitals, the Saint Spyridon in the eastern city of Iaşi. Prosecutors alleged that he “operated a network made up of medical personnel who provided him with implantable cardiac devices, including those extracted from deceased patients, without complying with the legal …