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Psychiatrist dies after being attacked by former patient

24 Apr 2023 10:33pm
For illustration purpose
For illustration purpose
ROME - A psychiatrist died from her injuries in hospital in Pisa late Sunday night after being attacked by a former patient on Friday, reported ANSA.

Barbara Capovani was hit on the head repeatedly by Gianluca Paul Seung as she was unlocking her bicycle at the end of her shiftat the Santa Chiara Hospital, where she was head of the Psychiatric Service for Diagnosis and Treatment unit.

Police arrested Seung on charges of attempted premeditated murder at his home on Saturday night after identifying him using material from video surveillance cameras.

He now faces charges of premeditated murder.

He is said to have harboured ill feelings towards Capovani, who treated him in 2019, and he was already known to police for violent behaviour.

Investigators said he had initially planned to attack Capovani on Thursday but she did not show up.

The incident is the latest in a series of attacks against medical professionals, after recent episodes in Chioggia and Lodi.

Psychiatrists, according to doctors' and medical directors' union Anaao-Assomed data, are the catgory of medical professionals most affected by attacks (34 per cent), followed by emergency department personnel (20 per cent).

"We are not able to defend ourselves against violence, and we have to sound the alarm regarding the safety, of doctors and other medical staff in psychiatry departments and in hospital facilities in general," said Emi Bondi, Italian Society of Psychiatry (SIP) president and director of the Department of Mental Health at the Papa Giovanni XXIII Hospital in Bergamo, and SIP president-elect Liliana Dell'Osso, director of the psychiatric clinic at the University of Pisa, in a statement. -BERNAMA-ANSA
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