Criminal charges have been brought against members of the management and nursing staff at Agrinio General Hospital in connection with a series of deaths in the hospital’s intensive care unit (ICU) during the Covid-19 pandemic. The charges, filed by the Agrinio public prosecutor, relate to the offence of exposing individuals to danger after it emerged that the ICU recorded a 100% mortality rate during the pandemic.

According to agriniopress.gr, the case has now moved to the examining magistrate, where those charged will be called to give evidence, alongside expert witnesses and relatives of the deceased.

As reported by the newspaper Peloponisos, these charges come after four years of legal efforts by 17 families who lost loved ones during the pandemic.

Local media in Agrinio had already raised alarm at the time, reporting that every Covid patient transferred to the ICU had died, highlighting what was described as an almost total fatality rate.

The regional health authority for the Peloponnese, Ionian Islands, and Western Greece later confirmed that the hospital had indeed experienced an abnormally high number of deaths in its ICU. A formal investigation into these incidents was reportedly planned by the hospital’s board of directors.

The criminal complaint – detailed in agriniopress.gr – names the hospital’s administration and suggests both administrative and criminal responsibility. It raises the possibility of felony-level misconduct and also criticises the head of nursing for allegedly managing staff appointments based on personal interests, rather than professional criteria.

The complaint includes media reports from the time pointing to serious failings and omissions by hospital management, even questioning the adequacy of the hospital’s facilities and the qualifications of its medical and nursing staff.

The Panhellenic Federation of Public Hospital Workers (POEDIN) had also weighed in during the pandemic, claiming that the ICU at Agrinio was not the only problematic unit. Makeshift ICUs in other hospitals, such as the one in Edessa, reportedly faced similarly high death rates, with the Edessa ICU – a six-bed unit hastily set up to handle Covid cases – also hitting a 100% fatality rate.

According to POEDIN’s then-president, Michalis Giannakos, multiple factors contributed to the high death tolls. These included inadequate care, delays in intubating patients until it was too late, lack of timely transfers to proper ICUs, long waiting times, age-based selection of patients, and patients being discharged too soon after being extubated. Staffing shortages were a major concern as well.

“When ICUs are understaffed and rely on a handful of inexperienced doctors and nurses, high death rates are sadly inevitable,” Giannakos explained, specifically addressing the situation in Agrinio.

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