While the future of Aníbal Lotocki, the doctor responsible for cases of malpractice that led to the deaths of Mariano Caprarola and Silvina Luna, is still being resolved in court, other patients who underwent cosmetic procedures under his scalpel fear for their lives.
All the victims, who multiply as the days go by, maintain the same demand for justice and demand that those who cover up for the doctor stop “protecting” him. But, at the same time, the fear of adding to the list of Lotocki’s fatalities grows among all of them. Famous and anonymous patients share their anguish over their health conditions and explain that their lives changed forever.
“We have 20 years to live from the application of the product!” one of his victims shouted at the doctor’s door during the protest march that took place on Wednesday, September 6. That feeling caused some of his former patients to burst into tears at the possibility of being the ones to suffer an outcome similar to that of Luna and Caprarola, alleged victims of the doctor’s bad behavior.
Fear
“It ruined my life. I don’t know if I’m going to wake up tomorrow or how I’m going to do it,” Silvana Di Raimondo, one of her patients, whose partner paid for the operation, told NEWS. That feeling is transversal to all those who went to the doctor’s office. “It’s like we are a time bomb that can explode at any moment,” summarized Stefy Xipolitakis about how Lotocki’s former patients face their lives day by day.
Pamela Sosa, Lotocki’s former partner who went from defending him to being one of his main detractors, stated: “I realized what I have only ten years after the surgery he performed on me. He operated on me in 2006 for the first time and I found out in 2016 from another surgeon who sent me for studies. You are afraid because you don’t know what can happen to you. It is very difficult to be constantly afraid.”
Like Xipolitakis and many other victims, Sosa also described his situation as a time bomb ready to explode, a slogan that became a flag and was even placed in front of the doctor’s house by the protesters who gathered in Olivos. to repudiate him.
“It distresses me to think that I am 33 years old and I almost had my foot amputated because of a perverse murderous surgeon. He gave me things that I don’t know I have in my body. Every day I get up and check my body because I’m afraid that something will break out. “I’m terrified,” said media journalist Fran Mariano, another of the doctor’s victims.
Thus, the people who were operated on by Lotocki live in constant fear that poor medical practices will take their toll on their bodies and generate health disorders. “I have pain, my body is shaking, I lost weight, my defenses were lowered, my family is afraid that I will get pneumonia like a while ago,” Gabriela Trenchi explained about how her life was affected. “I have all my bones decalcified like a 90-year-old person. Taking so much medication for pain brings me problems in my stomach, intestines and all the psychological aspects that this brings,” she added.
Medical visits and constant check-ups thus became the new reality for Lotocki’s former patients. “I had an ultrasound to find out how what’s left of my kidney is doing. With all the medication and diet I’m on I’m better. But I never took care of myself so much in my life. I have to take care of myself at tremendous levels,” said Uruguayan theater producer Raphael Dufort. Stefy Xipolitakis, for her part, confessed that she must go for kidney ultrasounds every six months to check that they do not calcify: “Tomorrow I could die and I did not ask for this. Today I have no mental health, I am very fragile,” he said.
The fear of what Lotocki may have done to the bodies of his patients includes those people who, although they do not yet have any symptoms of damage to their health, fear being the next victim. The star Mónica Farro confessed that although she has not yet suffered any disorder, after the cases of Caprarola and Luna she decided to go for medical check-ups. “All this makes me very bad, I don’t know what could happen,” she said. The Uruguayan also explained how her habits changed as a result of the accusations against Lotocki: “I started feeling areas of my body. I will be more aware of touching myself to see if I feel something. It’s horrible what’s happening,” she said.
Virginia Gallardo, for her part, explained that she suffers from chronic pain and that, although in her case the “cement” injected by Lotocki did not spread to other parts of her body, there is little she can do to alleviate the situation. “If I wanted to take it out they have to open me from side to side and slice the muscle. In my case it did not migrate. I am active and with the muscle I generate elasticity and it generates a hundred times more pain. The more I train, the more it hurts,” she explained.
Containment
After Luna’s death, many of Lotocki’s victims created a WhatsApp group to organize themselves to go to Lotocki’s house for the protest march that took place on September 6. However, this virtual community quickly changed its function, forcing the creation of another group in which the victims gathered but to tell their particular situations, provide mutual support and encourage other victims to narrate their sufferings.
“Another group was formed because in the middle questions arose, testimonies from people who have done different things to solve their problems, others say which doctors they treated themselves with,” Gallardo explained and added: “They don’t know the number of unknown cases that have been reported.” added. There are a lot of very serious ones. The truth is that today, with Monday’s newspaper, the issue of calcemia is something that is repeated in many cases.”
In the group, affected people also share advice on how to mitigate the chronic pain they suffer, which doctors they can go to, and how to proceed legally. According to reports, lawyer Fernando Burlando, who represents Silvina Luna’s relatives, promised to legally represent all of these people without charging fees.
This virtual community also made it possible to detect that the victims who accuse Lotocki are many more than previously thought, since each person who joins the group claims to know another person who was also affected. This could lead to a new case being initiated against the doctor, in which all of these testimonies against him come together.
