An Italian doctor is currently being investigated for using hospital equipment to diagnose his injured pet cat and then operating on her in order to save her life.
Gianluca Fanelli , head of the simple structure of Interventional Radiology and Neuroradiology at the Parini Hospital in Aosta, Italy, recently split his home country into two camps – one that considers him a hero who values life over rules and regulations, and another that thinks he should face the consequences for knowingly breaking the rules of his workplace. On the evening of January 27, after taking his injured cat to a veterinarian and receiving a dire diagnosis, the radiologist took his feline, Athena, to Parini Hospital and put in the CT scanner to get an idea of the internal organ damage she had suffered. He then performed pneumothoracic surgery on her in the unit’s angiography room in order to save her life.
“I did my duty. Without me, my Athena would have died,” Dr. Fanelli explained. “I knew I could only save her with a timely intervention. At a time when the three CT scans were not in service, after 8 pm on Monday 27 January, when the tests scheduled for the day were finished and all the diagnostic machines were not scheduled for any urgent tests, having verified that there were no patients and, obviously not clocking in, I decided to check what her condition was.”
Athena had always been an adventurous cat. On that day, she had climbed to the roof of the six-storey building that Gianluca Fanelli’s family called home as she usually did, only this time she somehow lost her balance and fell to the ground. The radiologist took her to a veterinary clinic where the staff discovered posterior fractures, detachment of at least one of the two lungs with a suspected pneumothorax, and possible lesions of the internal organs. Having confirmed the internal damage with a cat scan, Fanelli was then able to conduct the drainage of her lung cavity, which finally allowed Athena to breathe again.
“Being a doctor means carrying out a mission. The driving force is precisely the life that flows in the eyes of those who entrust themselves to your care, and this life flows in every living being,” the Italian doctor said. “If my cat had died, I would never have been able to forgive myself, especially because my children adore her.”
Word of Gianluca Fanelli’s deeds on the evening of January 27 spread like wildfire through Parini Hospital, and when news reached management, an internal investigation was ordered. Depending on its findings, Fanelli could face charges of wasting public money and depriving patients of essential services. His case is currently being handled by the Aosta prosecutors. One of the main questions is why the radiologist took the cat to Parini Hospital after getting the verdict from the veterinary clinic, to which he answers “the emotion of the moment” and the “urgency to intervene because it was a life and death situation”.
“My husband saved a life, period!” Gianluca Fanelli’s wife, local politician Nicoletta Spelgatti, told journalists. “In life, do good and never worry about the consequences. The laws of men and those of the Universe do not always match.”
