In statements to Lusa, Wilson Bicalho [pictured] noted that he is still awaiting the outcome of the inquiry opened by the Public Prosecutor’s Office following the complaint that was filed.
“I believe that, at the appropriate time, the family should file a compensation claim against TVI, CNN, the journalist, and secondarily against the doctor concerning what he is charged with,” the lawyer stated.
Wilson Bicalho emphasized that the demand amount has not been set and that the claim will consider, besides the decision from the Public Prosecutor’s Office, the known conclusions of the Regulatory Entity for Social Communication (ERC) and the parliamentary inquiry committee on the case.
The filing of the criminal complaint against TVI, CNN, journalist Sandra Felgueiras, image reporter Nelson Garrone, and doctor António Levy Gomes was reported today.
According to the report, the complaint suggests possible “crimes of defamation and slander, illegal recordings and photographs, invasion of privacy, breach of professional/medical secrecy, violation of personal data and psychological abuse of minors.”
The issue revolves around the 2020 hospital treatment of two twin children from Brazil who acquired Portuguese nationality and received the drug Zolgensma at Santa Maria Hospital in Lisbon.
Costing two million euros per person, this drug aims to control the spread of spinal muscular atrophy, a neurodegenerative disease.
The case, which was covered by TVI in November 2023, is under investigation by the Public Prosecutor’s Office, and the General Inspectorate of Health Activities has already concluded that the children’s access to the neuropediatric consultation was illegal.
An internal audit at Santa Maria Hospital also concluded that scheduling the first hospital consultation by the Secretary of State for Health was the sole exception to rule compliance in this case.
On December 4, 2023, the President of the Republic confirmed that his son, Nuno Rebelo de Sousa, contacted him by email in 2019 regarding the situation of the two Luso-Brazilian twins with spinal muscular atrophy who later received one of the world’s most expensive treatments at Santa Maria Hospital.
At that time, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa reported that correspondence exchanged at the Presidency in response to his son, sent to the Attorney General’s Office, was given “the most neutral processing,” similar to many others, and forwarded this file to the Government.
This case was subject to a parliamentary inquiry committee (CPI), and its conclusions were forwarded to the Public Prosecutor’s Office.
The final conclusions of the CPI, approved on March 18, indicate a “special intervention,” without illegality, by the Civil House of the President of the Republic, and note that former Secretary of State for Health Lacerda Sales instructed his secretary to request the scheduling of the children’s first consultation at Santa Maria Hospital.
