Tallinn hospital board member: Gynecologist fired due to 'loss of trust'

A major Tallinn hospital says it fired longtime women's clinic head Piret Veerus over a serious patient safety breach and false statements. Veerus denies wrongdoing.

West Tallinn Central Hospital (LTKH) terminated Veerus's employment with immediate effect on Thursday; at a press conference on Friday, LTKH board member and chief medical officer Vallo Volke said the reason was a loss of trust.

"Without going into detail, situations can arise during hospital treatment where there is suspicion that the outcome could have been better. We call these potential adverse events. The law, ministerial regulations, and the hospital's internal procedures require us to handle all cases like these—we register them, analyze them, and ultimately determine whether we could have performed better as a hospital or whether everything proceeded as could be expected from a European hospital," Volke said at the press conference.

The hospital had said earlier its reason for Veerus' dismissal was the death of a patient which occurred in the anesthesiology clinic earlier this year.

Volke added that if a case involves potentially preventable harm, or even suspicion of such harm, the hospital is required to notify its insurance company.

"The accusation against our clinic was a serious violation of patient safety rules. We discovered a case that, in our assessment, was a potential harm incident that should have been reported to the insurer. None of these processes had been carried out by the clinic," the LTKH board member continued.

Volke said he had previously asked Veerus for explanations on the case and whether the concerns were real, but he was given false information in response, he said. "I was told that everything had proceeded as usual. We are talking about a case with very serious consequences," Volke said. "In summary, this means we cannot continue the employment relationship in such circumstances."

Volke added there had been disagreements with Veerus before on what constitutes a preventable harm incident and what does not, but the most recent case was of such a severity level that trust could not be restored once the issue had come to light.

A clinic director is responsible for quality within the clinic, including ensuring that all suspected incidents are registered and properly investigated, Volke added, noting that the incidents will be investigated "thoroughly from beginning to end, and ultimately determine how much of it involves areas where the hospital could have performed better."

Veerus denied any wrongdoing and told ERR honesty and patient safety are of utm