Panama public defender Juan Antonio Tejada will analyze the report that led to sanctions against 12 employees of the National Oncologic Institute, Panamanian daily La Prensa reported yesterday.
The penalties were assessed following a national health ministry investigation into the cause of radiation overdoses administered to 28 pelvic cancer patients at the institute between August 2000 and February 2001. So far 12 patients have died in a tragedy that has drawn international attention to the need for quality control procedures in radiation therapy.
However, patients and physicians have complained that the sanctions are excessively harsh, and unfairly target individual operators rather than the procedural failures they say are more to blame for the radiation overdoses. Among the employees penalized, two nuclear physicists were terminated and barred from practicing their profession for life, La Prensa said.
The reevaluation may result in some of the penalties being revised.
By AuntMinnie.com staff writersAugust 16, 2001
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