USZ Todesbändeli Scandal: 70 Excess Deaths

A flagship hospital scandal just got much worse. University Hospital Zurich said on May 5 that an independent investigation found serious failures in its cardiac surgery clinic between 2016 and 2020 — the years when Francesco Maisano led the unit. The big number is 68 to 74 excess deaths across about 4,500 operations. But the story is not just bad outcomes. It is a picture of weak oversight, conflicts of interest, and a hospital leadership that kept saying patients had not been harmed when that turned out not to be true. (usz.ch) ### What actually happened? The hospital commissioned an outside investigation in August 2024 after mounting questions about unusually high mortality in heart surgery. That commission, led by former federal judge Niklaus Oberholzer, reviewed deaths, device use, governance, and compensation cases. Its final report says the clinic had “numerous serious failing(usz.ch)also reached the former hospital management and former hospital board. (usz.ch) ### Why is the death toll described two ways? Because the report uses two different lenses. One is statistical: compared with Swiss university-hospital benchmarks, mortality was 68 to 74 deaths higher than expected. The other is case-by-case: of 307 deaths individually reviewed during Maisano’s tenure, 11 were judged “not expected” and 64 more “rather not ex(usz.ch)ty overall, while the smaller numbers point to specific deaths the commission found especially troubling. (usz.ch) ### What is the “Todesbändeli” part? That nickname points to the Cardioband, a device Maisano helped develop. It was meant as an innovative implant for certain heart-valve procedures. But the report says 13 uses of innovative medical products — especially Cardioband cases — were inappropriate. Critics have argued for years that device enthusiasm, study inter(usz.ch)ent care and experimentation. Basically, the scandal is not only that people died. It is that some patients may have been exposed to procedures that should never have been done that way in the first place. (usz.ch) ### Why does Maisano matter so much? He sits at the center of the story because he ran the clinic from 2014 until May 2020, and the report directly ties the period of excess mortality to his leadership. The hospital says his appointment was rushed, his leadership skills were lacking, and conflicts of interest existed. But the catch is that the report does no(usz.ch)the hospital directorate failed to supervise properly, and the hospital board underestimated the seriousness of what was happening. (usz.ch) ### What changed this week? Two things. First, the hospital publicly accepted the findings and apologized to patients and families. Second, it sent 11 deaths and 13 inappropriate device-use cases to the Zurich public prosecutor. The prosecutor also said three complaints had already been filed in March 2026 on suspicion of negligent homicide, negligent bodily(usz.ch)worked through by a specialized unit. (usz.ch) ### Wasn’t the hospital saying the opposite before? Yes — and that is why this lands so hard. Zurich’s health directorate said the new report contradicts what the hospital board told it in spring 2020, when officials were repeatedly assured patient safety had not been compromised. The canton called that a serious misjudgment. Three board members who were alr(usz.ch) is basically an admission that the governance failure was real, not cosmetic. (zh.ch) ### Is the clinic still unsafe now? The official line is no. The canton says the current clinic is no longer comparable to the one described in the report, and points to changes in governance, quality control, risk managemen(zh.ch)reakdown. (zh.ch) ### So what matters now? The legal process matters. So do compensation claims. But the bigger issue is simpler — a top Swiss hospital spent years defending itself, and only later admitted that dozens of deaths were likely avoidable. That turns a medical scandal into a governance scandal, and those usually last longer. (usz.ch)