Public Ombudsman Tena Simonovic-Einwalter said after looking into the case of journalist Vladimir Matijanic's death that the Health Ministry's commission which determined that no omissions had been made in his treatment had left numerous questions unanswered.

Simonovic-Einwalter launched an inquiry in the availability of medical care to Matijanic and his right to be provided with complete information in August 2022.

During the inquiry, she sought opinions and documentation from the Health Ministry, the Croatian Medical Chamber, the Croatian Nurses Chamber, the Split-Dalmatia County Emergency Medicine Institute, the KBC Split hospital, as well as information from the Office of the State Attorney-General.

Statements not checked additionally

The opinion of the Health Ministry’s expert commission which looked into the case contains chronological data based exclusively on statements by doctors and other medical workers involved in providing medical care to Matijanic, Simonovic-Einwalter said.

Those statements did not undergo additional checking and were taken for granted without a more detailed analysis or determination of possible omissions, she said in a report published on her office’s website.

The ombudsman said that the final assessment of the expert commission is based on the presumed level of the patient’s responsibility for his own health, but at the same time the reasons for his allegedly not having taken therapy and undergoing vaccination against COVID-19 were not investigated in greater detail.

Also, the expert commission said that the necessary examinations were not performed on Matijanic for different reasons, but there is a lack of information on the role of the health system in the non-implementation of those procedures, for example on the provision of information about possible consequences and possible options offered, either as alternatives or as methods to facilitate the implementation of the required examinations, given the specificities of Matijanic’s medical condition, she said.

She added that the Health Ministry’s expert commission did not deal with the wider institutional shortcomings or omissions in the medical system which could have possibly affected Matijanic’s vaccination status and the inability to undergo the necessary examinations.

How did information Matijanić was given affect his death

“The question therefore remains unanswered as to how and how much the information Matijanic as a patient obtained from medical workers, also before infection with the coronavirus, affected the tragic outcome,” the Office of the Ombudsman says in the report.

It remains unclear if the necessary antiviral medicine was available at the time and how Matijanic would have been treated in hospital with an antiviral drug if, according to the KBC Split hospital, the drug was not available in that period.

Neither the Croatian Medical Chamber’s expert commission nor the Health Ministry’s expert commission checked why Matijanic had not been given therapy, the ombudsman said.

The question that also remains unanswered is what is the protocol in cases of patients infected with the coronavirus with an increased risk of a bad outcome considering Matijanic’s previous health and vaccination status, as well as what the criteria are for a decision on the necessary hospitalisation of a patient infected with that virus, Simonovic-Einwalter said.

All of this shows that the Health Ministry’s actions have still not provided answers to the question of whether the patient was provided with timely medical care and whether based on his autopsy report an estimate was made as to when the medical conditions that led to his death had developed.

Matijanic died in his flat in Split on August 5, 2022 as a result of coronavirus infection, which attracted a lot of public attention after his partner Andrea Topic said that doctors at the KBC Split hospital and the emergency medical service did not want to help him even though he suffered from a number of underlying conditions.

Matijanic suffered from Sjögren’s syndrome and interstitial lung disease, with two more autoimmune diseases suspected. He also got infected with the coronavirus.

After his death, a Health Ministry commission was formed to look into the case.They did not find omissions in his treatment and neither did the an expert commission of the Croatian Medical Chamber.