Boca Juniors fans watch their team play a local tournament soccer league match against River Plate, in front of a banner of soccer legend Diego Maradona, in La Boca neigborhood in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Sunday, April 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)
Maradona allowed to order hamburgers in days after surgery, ICU director testifies
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) 鈥 Diego Maradona was allowed to order unhealthy food including hamburgers during recovery from surgery, the director of the clinic’s intensive care unit testified Tuesday at the the trial of seven health professionals charged with negligence in the soccer star’s death.
Boca Juniors fans watch their team play a local tournament soccer league match against River Plate, in front of a banner of soccer legend Diego Maradona, in La Boca neigborhood in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Sunday, April 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) 鈥 Diego Maradona was allowed to order unhealthy food including hamburgers during recovery from surgery, the director of the clinic’s intensive care unit testified Tuesday at the the trial of seven health professionals charged with negligence in the soccer star’s death.
Fernando Villarejo, who worked at the Olivos Clinic on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, told the court he felt like a pawn between the 鈥渒ing and the queen,鈥 referring to neurosurgeon Leopoldo Luque and psychiatrist Agustina Cosachov, as they determined Maradona’s post-surgery care in November 2020.
鈥淎nything was allowed inside the room,鈥 Villarejo testified. 鈥淚t was embarrassing what happened there. I take responsibility.鈥
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Maradona had surgery for a hematoma that formed between his skull and brain and stayed in intensive care at the Olivos Clinic between Nov. 4-11.
Luque and Cosachov proposed that Maradona’s care continue in a private home in the town of Tigre, almost 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the capital.
Maradona, who led Argentina to the World Cup title in 1986, while in home care. He was 60.
Villarejo said that Maradona underwent surgery without any preoperative examinations and that a few days after the surgery, Luque ordered him to sedate Maradona to 鈥渢ry to detoxify鈥 him from his drinking habits and because he was an unmanageable patient.
鈥淚 didn鈥檛 agree 鈥 it wasn鈥檛 the right place. I told Luque all this,鈥 said the director of the clinic鈥檚 intensive care unit, who said that he recorded all of it in the medical records.
He added that Maradona鈥檚 family agreed to the sedation 鈥渙ut of ignorance or because they trusted (his father鈥檚 people).鈥
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Villarejo said that he agreed with that the former national team captain should have recovered in a rehabilitation clinic rather than in a private home.
Luque was Maradona鈥檚 personal physician for the last four years of his life, while Cosachov prescribed medication that Maradona took until the time of his death.
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