A deceased doctor’s body has not yet been released to his family due to their insistence on continuing legal proceedings to open an inquiry, the Health Authorities said in a counter-protest on Friday. 

Naged Megally died at Mater Dei Hospital last July after undergoing several surgeries and spending weeks in the ITU.

His wife and children have continued to fight for a magisterial inquiry to determine whether Megally was neglected by his caregivers during his hospital stay in a way that could have contributed to his death. 

The family maintain that Megally’s complicated medical history was not taken into consideration during his final days and that they were not consulted when what they call ‘life and death’ decisions had to be made on his care. 

A court eventually ruled that the case did not merit a magisterial inquiry. 

Last month, the family filed a judicial protest claiming that hospital authorities were holding Megally’s body hostage and breaching their rights by refusing to consent to a private autopsy. 

In a counter-protest filed on Friday, the Health Minister, Hospital CEO, Chief Medical Officer and Attorney General rebutted those claims, insisting it was the doctor’s family itself that was holding up proceedings by pursuing judicial action. 

“Once [the family] has decided to take the judicial route, they cannot expect the respondents to authorise a private autopsy when it is not in their competence to do so,” they said. 

While the family had said it had the right to transfer the man’s corpse to a private hospital at its own expense, it did not indicate which laws permit them to do so. 

Although the courts had already denied their requests for an autopsy, it is the family itself that is going against its own wishes to have the body released by opening new proceedings that are causing the release to be delayed as a result. 

The health and hospital authorities denied preventing the family from looking at Megally’s medical file and only insisted that they do so in the presence of a nurse or doctor as is established in hospital policy. 

On the merits of the family’s accusations that Megally was medically neglected by his doctors, they said these did not merit being addressed by the civil court because the issue had already been conclusively decided upon by the criminal court. 

The protest tabled by the family can only be considered “frivolous and vexing” and intended only to tarnish the reputation of the named entities. 

The respondents said they had no obligation to indicate any so-called suspects because no suspicious death had occurred, as pronounced by the criminal court. 

It is not the case that authorities tried to hide information from the family, noting that several medical consultants who treated the deceased doctor had gone to court to testify, despite being eligible for the right to silence in these circumstances. 

At no point did the authorities do anything to stall or elongate procedures in front of the criminal court, but had always presented evidence as requested and participated wholly in court sittings in the interest of the family’s protest being addressed in the shortest time possible. 

“The hospital has always obeyed court orders and in no way tried to control how [the family’s] complaints were addressed,” the protest reads. 

“The fact [they] were unhappy with the answers they received in no way indicates that we behaved as we pleased and should be taken to mean that we always followed the court’s directions.” 

Without prejudice, the counter-protestors said that while they sympathise with the family, Megally’s fundamental rights were his own to enjoy and cannot be transferred to his family to claim they have been violated. 

Dr Michael Sciriha, Dr Lucio Sciriha and Dr Franco Galea signed the counter-protest.