North Ossetian Health Ministry ordered to pay $24,000 over maternal death

Editor’s note: This article has been updated to include comments from Tasoeva’s lawyer.

A court in North Ossetia has ruled that the republic’s Ministry of Health and the Pravoberezhny Central District Clinical Hospital must pay compensation of ₽2 million ($24,000) to Fatima Tasoeva for moral damages caused by the death of her daughter, Aida Tasoeva, in December 2021. The court found that the hospital had provided inadequate medical care, which led Tasoeva’s death.

Aida Tasoeva, 32, passed away in December 2021 due to complications caused by COVID-19 while in the maternity ward of the Pravoberezhny Hospital. Her mother, Fatima Tasoeva, claimed that inadequate treatment and medical negligence led to her daughter’s death.

According to Fatima Tasoeva, her daughter initially received treatment at home because PCR tests returned negative results despite clear symptoms of COVID-19. When her condition worsened, she was hospitalised in the maternity ward, where she gave birth to a baby boy at 33 weeks. After delivery, Tasoeva’s condition rapidly deteriorated, and despite doctors’ efforts, she passed away. Her child survived.

Over the first two years of the pandemic, the maternity ward of Pravoberezhny hospital admitted more than 1,500 patients for COVID–related symptoms. Of those, 150 pregnant women were treated in intensive care, and nine died between September and December 2021. However, Tasoeva’s death was not officially included in these statistics, as she was transferred to another hospital just before her passing.

Seeking justice, Fatima Tasoeva turned to various authorities, including local government bodies, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Russian Investigative Committee Head Alexander Bastrykin, and the Prosecutor General’s Office, demanding accountability for those responsible.

According to maternity ward doctors, most of the deceased women sought medical help at late stages of the illness, when lung damage had already reached 85-90%. Medical staff insisted they did everything possible to save the patients, but the severity of the disease and delayed hospitalisations reduced their chances of survival.

In September 2022, North Ossetia’s Health Minister Soslan Tebiev stated that all of the women’s deaths were caused by a lack of medical equipment and a shortage of intensive care specialists.

A post-mortem report from Roszdravnadzor (Russia’s healthcare watchdog), compiled after the women’s deaths, found multiple violations at the Pravoberezhny hospital that contributed to the death of Aida Tasoeva’s and others. According to the report, doctors failed to provide even basic medications used to treat COVID and other complications, such as Phenibut, Smecta, Regidron, Ingavirin, and Nazivin. Relatives of the patients were forced to purchase these essential drugs themselves.

All doctors working in the intensive care unit at the time were eventually dismissed, including the department head, Khasan Tagaev, whom the victims’ families consider one of the main culprits in the tragedy.

The court proceedings in Fatima Tasoeva’s lawsuit began in the spring of 2024 but faced multiple delays due to the non-attendance of Ministry of Health and hospital representatives, as well as changes in judges. Tasoeva initially sought ₽10 million ($119,000) in compensation after the investigation revealed that her daughter had been given incorrect dosages of medication and that doctors had failed to conduct blood tests.

​​‘Our side has not yet decided whether to file an appeal. However, I believe that the Ministry of Health and the Pravoberezhny District Hospital will do so, as they have disagreed with the decision from the outset. They argue that all medical assistance was provided correctly and that the only violations were in the documentation process, which, according to them, had no consequences — despite all the expert assessments proving otherwise’, Sergei Bronitsky, the lawyer representing Fatima Tasoeva, told OC Media.

According to him, a total of three expert assessments were conducted, yet the doctors still refused to admit fault.

‘I think their approach is simply to disregard human compassion — despite the fact that, in theory, the Ministry of Health should be the most humane institution. They choose to ignore compassion and focus on money’, Bronitsky emphasised.

In comments to OC Media, the lawyer also noted that the families of the other deceased women have not yet taken their cases to court but are preparing to do so. In addition, the family of another victim, who survived but remains in a vegetative state, is also planning to file a lawsuit.

Before the final hearing, the judge requested documents from Roszdravnadzor and the results of the Health Ministry’s internal investigation. Ministry representatives again failed to appear, while hospital representatives denied any wrongdoing and requested the lawsuit be dismissed. Despite this, the court partially upheld Tasoeva’s claim and ordered the defendants to pay compensation for moral damages.

According to North Ossetian media reports, mothers of other deceased women attended the court hearings to support Fatima Tasoeva. However, no public records indicate that these families have filed their own lawsuits or initiated separate legal proceedings.

Additionally, former maternity ward chief Tagaev is facing criminal charges for falsifying records related to the death of another newborn in a case unrelated to Tasoeva’s — he reportedly documented that the baby was stillborn when, in fact, it was not. Alan Adyrkhaev, the head doctor of the hospital, is also accused in the same case. A verdict in his case has yet to be delivered.

https://oc-media.org/covid-19-outbreak-in-daghestan-significantly-understated/