The granddaughter of an 84-year-old
suspected COVID case who died in a Naples ER ward toilet earlier
this week said Friday he was murdered.
A video of Giuseppe Cantalupo's body went viral spurring
condemnation to which the man who took it, 30-year-old Rosario
La Monica, replied by saying he had done so to try and save
Cantalupo's life and also to highlight the plight of ER patients
amid intense COVID pressure on hospitals.
The dead man's granddaughter, Tatiana, said on Facebook Friday
"dying like that is not acceptable, he was my granddad, my best
friend, and you murdered him, in the most brutal way of all,
with shame".
"The cowards didn't have the courage to tell us the condition he
was found in.
"How did he end up alone in that bathroom?
"How did he get in there?
"He wasn't in a (sufficiently strong) condition to get to the
bathroom on his own.
"Where were the nurses? The doctors? Where were the controls?
How slimy you are. They didn't even left us recognize the body,
telling us 'sorry but it's COVID, he's in a (body) bag'.
"What an outrage to human dignity!".
A 30-year-old man from near Naples has admitted posting the
video of Cantalupo's body saying he had done so to try and save
the man and also to highlight the plight of patients in the
city's overstretched ERs.
Rosario La Monica, who also has COVID, told ANSA: "I shot and
put on Facebook that video and others too to show that there we
are treated like people with the plague, elderly people
abandoned and left on their own, as happened to that old man who
died in the bathroom, who was alive when I got into (the ER at
the Cardarelli Hospital)".
La Monica went on: "He was in the same room as me, he didn't
come out of the bathroom and so I went in. He couldn't breathe
because he had COVID. I splashed some water in his face and then
I asked for help but no one paid any attention to me. They
arrived half an hour later and he was already dead. I can't
stand it.
"I shot those images because I wanted to show how disgusting
(the situation is): when I asked for help no one would listen to
me, and some of them even said 'mind your own business'.
"I'd been in the hospital for two days, for respiratory
problems. That person (the dead man) was with me in the room,
with other old guys whom I, who was better, was helping".
Europa Verde regional councillor Francesco Emilio Borrelli
called for an immediate investigation to establish the truth of
La Monica's "extremely grave" accusations.
The posting of the video has been widely condemned. The hospital
said they realised the case was newsworthy but the distribution
of the video had been "deplorable".
Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio called the case of the dead man,
who is believed to have died of a heart attack, "shocking".
Naples prosecutors have sequestered the body and have opened a
probe into the author of the video.
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