Juan Maeso dies, the anesthesiologist who was sentenced to 1,900 years in prison for infecting 275 patients with hepatitis C
The court ruled that the man had contracted the virus by pricking himself with the needle with which he subsequently anesthetized patients
The name of Juan Maeso will be forever associated with one of the most serious and complex medical malpractice cases in the State, both for the modus operandi and for the extremely high number of victims. The anesthesiologist was sentenced to 1,933 years in prison for infecting nearly 300 patients with hepatitis C in the 1990s in Valencia. As confirmed this Tuesday to Efe by his lawyer, Miguel Ferrer, Maeso died on Monday in hospital after a long illness which, in fact, allowed him to be released on conditional parole in 2023 after serving fifteen years in prison.
The case came to light in 1998, when an unusual number of hepatitis C infections began to be detected in four hospitals in Valencia: one public and three private. Subsequently, it was scientifically confirmed that the source of the massive outbreak was the anesthesiologist himself, who was a carrier of the virus. In fact, during the trial, it was concluded that the doctor was directly responsible: according to the sentence, Maeso injected himself with part of the anesthetic substances he was supposed to administer to patients and then reused the material (i.e., the same needle) with them.
With this modus operandi the anesthesiologist infected, at a minimum, 275 people with hepatitis C, a viral disease that can severely affect the liver. At the time Maeso serially infected his patients, it had only been described a few years earlier (1989) – it was so unknown that it was known as "non-A, non-B hepatitis" – and there were no treatments as effective as those available today.
A trial with more than 100 lawyers
In September 2005, the mega-trial for this massive hepatitis C contagion began. Given the magnitude of the case –with a summary of 22,000 pages–, it was necessary to set up a special room in the City of Justice of Valencia to accommodate 153 lawyers and 114 solicitors, and through which more than 600 witnesses passed, including affected individuals, doctors, executives from various hospitals, and Valencian government officials.
During the proceedings, genetics experts presented the results of a report that demonstrated, through a phylogenetic study, that the hepatitis C viruses of 275 infected patients originated from the same source, the virus carried by the anesthetist, which they considered the sole source of the contagions. Maeso, however, went so far as to claim that the results had been misrepresented.
Nevertheless, in 2007, and after seventeen months of proceedings, the Valencia Court sentenced the anesthetist to 1,933 years in prison, although in Spain the maximum prison sentence is twenty years. On the other hand, the Valencian Generalitat was ordered to pay over 20 million euros in compensation as a subsidiary civil responsible party.