Miguel Ángel Martín passed away on November 30 at the age of 73. ‘El Cura’, as he was affectionately known after Nacho Azofra gave him that nickname, is a Spanish basketball legend who coached Real Madrid, Students y Granadain the highest category, and also to Murcia, Complutense University and a Alcazar of San Juan in which he closed his legendary career on the bench in 2009.
His most remembered stage was undoubtedly that of Estudiantes, a club he joined in 1984, within the organization chart of the collegiate youth academy. In 1988 he made the first team, which he led until 1994. Unforgettable debutants such as the aforementioned Azofra, Alberto Herreros, Pablo and Gonzalo Martínez, Alfonso Reyes, Iñaki de Miguel… He was also the one who gave way to Ricky Winslow in replacing another legendary American, David Russell. With Estu he won the Copa del Rey in Granada in 1992, the year in which he also led the club to the Euroleague Final Four. Pepu Hernández grew up with him and replaced him in 1994, twelve years before he was the coach that led Spain to win the 2006 World Cup.
Now, more than a month after his death, the family of Miguel Ángel Martín, has wanted to issue a statement with which he intends to clarify what was the cause of his death, since it was wrongly reported that it had come as a result of a cancer. However, the relatives of the remembered coach assure that the trigger for his death was the malpractice of the Quirón de Pozuelo Hospital, where he was admitted in June for a prostate intervention that was considered routine. However, in this operation a part of the intestine was sectioned by mistake. After leaving the ICU and when he was already on the ward, he began to feel unwell, at which point, according to his family’s version, he was not properly cared for. Finally, a surgeon detected a shock septic that required a new emergency intervention, more than a month in the ICU and a process that led to a change of hospital, with transfer to the Jiménez Díaz Foundation, and a sixth operation (after five carried out in Quirón Pozuelo) that did not I can avoid death about a month later.
The relatives have started the legal procedures for a claim before the Hospital Quirón Pozuelo, with which they AS unsuccessfully tried to get in touch, and the doctor who performed the first intervention. But they want to make it clear that the cause of death was not cancer but what they consider to be gross negligence that they do not want to be repeated with other patients. In fact, they assure that they met with the hospital and that they received an apology and an assumption of responsibility that later remained on paper, both with regard to the failures of the first intervention and, above all, to what they consider an inexplicable fault. care for about 14 hours that triggered multi-organ failure followed by successive operations, the change of center due to lack of confidence in Quirón Pozuelo and, finally, death.
This is the full statement:
“The family of Miguel Angel Martín, known for his charismatic career as coach of the Estudiantes and Real Madrid basketball teams, we want to state that the information that has appeared in the press about his death, due to cancer or for natural, they are absolutely false.
Miguel Ángel was admitted to the Quirón Pozuelo Hospital on June 24, 2022, for a scheduled prostate operation by specialist Dr. Jesús Cisneros Ledo with the Da Vincci robot. Intervention that, even with the risks inherent to a surgery of these characteristics, was practically routine. At the end of the operation, carried out in the afternoon of that day, the aforementioned urologist who intervened informs us that when extracting the prostate, by mistake, part of the intestine was sectioned but that ‘the damaged part had been sewn up and that everything it’s okay’.
After the stay in the ICU, on June 25 they take him up to his room on the Hospital floor and around 7 pm he begins to feel very ill, which is why the nurses are notified to call a doctor, since Despite the insistence, it is not until 4 in the morning that a doctor comes, who, without even examining Miguel Angel, limits herself to telling us that they will do an analysis. After 14 hours without any type of medical attention, his surgeon comes and detects that he has septic shock and multiple organ failure, which is why he must undergo urgent surgery again and after this intervention he must spend more than a month in the hospital. ICU of the aforementioned hospital.
Unfortunately, the lack of medical care at Hospital Quirón Pozuelo does not end there. On August 19, 2022, Miguel Ángel feels unwell again and the family calls for someone to attend to him, stating the health workers on duty that it must be a postural problem. It wasn’t until the next morning that an ICU doctor reported that he had another septic ‘shock’ and multi-organ failure, stating to us: ‘I can’t believe they let him get to this situation’.
After a month in the ICU and in a very serious situation, the Quirón Pozuelo Medical Directorate grants a meeting with the family on September 7 where they apologize and acknowledge the failures that occurred with Miguel Ángel.
From there, and due to an obvious loss of trust with the Quirón de Pozuelo Hospital, we requested the transfer to the Jiménez Díaz Foundation, which takes place on September 19. In this new center, he had to be operated on for the sixth time (the previous five were in Quirón Pozuelo), since, according to what we were told, the intestinal area that gave rise to the first sepsis had to be repaired again. After this operation, and unable to repair the damage caused, he unfortunately passed away about a month later.
Faced with this situation, the family goes to the law firm specializing in claims for professional civil liability directed by D. Manuel Castellanos Piccirilli, who communicates with the management of the Hospital which now refuses all responsibility, avoiding the same by communicating that the specialist in urology, Dr. Cisneros Ledo acted ‘under his exclusive professional and organizational responsibility, without being part of the Clinic’s staff’.
For all these reasons, we see ourselves in the obligation to deal with some erroneous information spread in the media and make public the facts surrounding the unfortunate death of Miguel Ángel and we are taking legal measures so that cases like my husband’s do not happen again.”
