Supreme Court orders retrial in Gaiļezers radiologists case

Latvia’s Supreme Court has ordered the Riga Regional Court to rehear a long-running case accusing medical staff at East Hospital of taking payments from patients for faster examinations, LSM reported. The accused welcomed the decision, while the hospital said its waiting list cannot be bypassed.

The Supreme Court said the case must be heard again because of errors made earlier in the proceedings. The investigation, launched by the Corruption Prevention and Combating Bureau in 2015, is one of Latvia’s largest criminal cases involving medical professionals.

Prosecutors say the accused bypassed the official waiting list for magnetic resonance imaging examinations and the hospital’s cashier. Investigators allege that 121 patients received examinations outside the established procedure and that the hospital suffered losses of at least 12,000 euros.

Five current or former East Hospital medical staff were accused of accepting unlawful benefits from patients. They are radiologists and assistants Juris Kalvāns, Vēsma Matroze, Ilze Laila Laudere, Karina Moisejeva and Ineta Nemiro. Māra Epermane, head of the Diagnostic Radiology Centre at the Oncology Centre, was accused of knowingly allowing subordinates to act unlawfully. Another medical professional was also charged but has since died.

The alleged activity dates back to 2013. A prosecutor previously told the LTV news programme Panorāma that some witnesses could no longer remember how much they had paid for faster appointments. She said she understood the fear felt by cancer patients seeking urgent examinations, but maintained that the alleged conduct constituted corruption.