Two more Bolzano hospital staff placed under investigation over failed Naples heart transplant

Two new suspects in Bolzano

Two more health workers have been placed under investigation over the death of a two-year-old boy who died in February after receiving a damaged heart in December. The new suspects are a female coordinator and a male social-health operator at the San Maurizio hospital in Bolzano, where the organ was removed on 23 December 2025. Investigators will question both in Naples in the coming days, and prosecutors describe the registration as a required procedural step. With them, the total of health staff under investigation rises to nine. Premier Giorgia Meloni has called the boy's mother to express solidarity and promise that justice will be done.

Already charged with culpable homicide7

Newly placed under investigation2

Already charged with culpable homicide

7 people

Newly placed under investigation

2 people

Data from the article text

How the heart was damaged

Carabinieri from the Nas, working under prosecutors Giuseppe Tittaferrante and Antonio Ricci, are focusing on the transport of the organ. The heart was removed in Bolzano by a team that had travelled from Naples and was placed in a container that did not meet guidelines. Dry ice supplied by the Bolzano hospital was added in place of ordinary ice. The damage was discovered only in Naples, when staff opened the container. Investigators allege that the extreme cold inside irreparably harmed the heart muscle, yet the organ was transplanted into the child's chest at the Monaldi hospital. Seven other medical professionals already face charges of culpable homicide over the death.

Hearings in Naples

On Thursday, 12 November and Friday, 13 November, the Naples court will hear the examination and cross-examination of experts appointed by the investigating judge Mariano Sorrentino. These are the concluding hearings of an evidentiary proceeding, known as an incidente probatorio, that the judge ordered. The experts will assess the condition of the sick boy's heart and of the donor organ taken in Bolzano. Investigators hope the findings will clarify what happened at each stage of the transplant.

A second complaint at the Monaldi

A formal notice, known as a messa in mora, has been sent to the Monaldi hospital over the death of a girl there on 27 March 2023. The girl was two years and three months old when she died, and she had received a heart transplant at the same hospital in August 2021. Two consultants for the family, Luca Scognamiglio and Vincenzo Iovinella, say she died of a poorly treated hospital infection. They identify responsibilities in her care and describe terminal biological and moral damage. The family's lawyer, Francesco Petruzzi, is also vice president of the foundation set up after the boy's death, and that foundation has taken on this case as its first. Two other children who died in 2023 after other types of surgery at the Monaldi are also under its attention. Petruzzi pointed to a WhatsApp message obtained by the Naples prosecutor's office, in which one of the staff under investigation refers to three deaths.

“We are waiting to know who the three dead are.”