Maradona was ‘very difficult patient’, surgeon tells death trial

San Isidro, Argentina: Diego Maradona was a “very difficult patient” who had to be coaxed into treatment, a surgeon told the trial Thursday of seven health professionals accused of criminal negligence over his death.

The Argentine football legend died on November 25, 2020 at age 60, while recovering at home from brain surgery for a blood clot. His seven-person medical team is on trial for what prosecutors have called the “horror theater” of his care in the final days of his life, at a private home in the Buenos Aires suburb of Tigre.

Maradona died of heart failure and acute pulmonary edema -- a condition where fluid accumulates in the lungs -- two weeks after going under the knife. One of the questions at the heart of the trial is whether the decision to allow him to convalesce in a private home instead of a medical facility endangered his life.

Neurosurgeon Rodolfo Benvenuti supervised Maradona’s surgery. He told the court he struggled to convince Maradona to have a CT scan beforehand. “He was a very difficult patient,” Benvenuti recalled, describing him as “defiant.”