Supreme Court Orders Retrial of Gaiļezers Hospital Radiologists' Corruption Case

The Senate of Latvia's Supreme Court ruled this week that the Riga Regional Court must hear again the criminal case against radiologists and their assistants at the Gaiļezers site of Riga East University Hospital. The defendants, current and former medical staff, are accused of taking money from patients, including cancer patients, for faster access to magnetic resonance imaging. The decision means a process that has already lasted more than ten years will continue for several more.

The charges

Latvia's Corruption Prevention and Combating Bureau (KNAB) opened the criminal case in 2015. Five medical staff are charged with accepting unlawful benefits from patients, and one more person with inaction as a public official. Prosecutors argue the defendants bypassed the official scan queue and also the hospital's cash desk. Investigators say scans were carried out this way for 121 patients, causing the hospital losses of at least 12,000 euros. The alleged actions date back to 2013.

The defendants are radiologists and assistants Juris Kalvāns, Vēsma Matroze, Ilze Laila Laudere, Karina Moisejeva and Ineta Nemiro, as well as Māra Epermane, head of the Diagnostic Radiology Centre at the Oncology Centre, who is accused of knowingly allowing her subordinates' unlawful conduct. Another defendant has died.

Court history

The first-instance court gave several defendants suspended prison sentences and banned them from running a medical institution for several months, but acquitted Epermane. Last summer the Riga Regional Court found Epermane guilty and fined her more than 2,000 euros, acquitted Moisejeva, and fined the others between one and five minimum monthly wages, also banning them from practising medicine for a year.

The Senate found that the regional court wrongly treated the defendants as state institution employees and did not establish whether services provided after state quotas ran out were still a delegated state function. In some episodes, acceptance of money was not proven, and it was unclear why no compensation for damages was set although losses were acknowledged, Senator Māris Leja explained.

Reactions

The prosecutor declined to comment. Defence lawyers welcomed the ruling: Astra Kaleja argued the hospital is not a state institution, and Nemiro denies guilt. Epermane's lawyer Saulvedis Vārpiņš said the charge had damaged her reputation and career.

Riga East Hospital says appointments are now electronic only, so bypassing the queue is impossible, and a "green corridor" exists for oncology patients. Nemiro and Kalvāns still work at the hospital.