The judicial process continues to ascertain the responsibilities of the death of Domenico Caliendothe two and a half year old boy from Nola who had been transplanted with a damaged heart. THEThe investigating judge of Naples Sorrentino has ordered the ban from the medical profession for the heart surgeon Guido Oppido and his deputy Emma Bergonzoni, who on 23 December 2025 performed the transplant on little Domenico, who died on 21 February in the Monaldi hospital. The two were suspended for 12 and 7 months respectively on charges of material and ideological falsehood in competition in relation to the compilation of the child’s medical record. The requests of the Prosecutor’s Office, which coordinated the investigations by the Nas (led by Commander Cisternino), were therefore accepted. Assisted by their respective lawyers, doctor Guido Oppido (preventively suspended by the Colli Hospital) and his deputy Emma Bergonzoni underwent preventive interrogation on 31 March and 21 May. Meanwhile, on June 10, the evidentiary incident ordered by investigating judge Mariano Sorrentino on the child’s two hearts ended.: the one that arrived frozen from Bolzano due to dry ice and also on Domenico’s sick one. The filing of the reports on the examinations carried out by the pool of experts appointed by the judicial authority has been set for September. In recent months Domenico’s mother, Patrizia Mercolino (who with her husband Antonio Caliendo, assisted by the lawyer Francesco Petruzzi, presented a request for extrajudicial compensation) he is touring Italy to bear his testimony also on behalf of the Foundation founded in the name of Domenico. We had spoken to her on the occasion of the first public presentation of her book in Naples A burned heart (Piemme).
Commit Domenico’s short life to the pages of a book: for his mother Patrizia Mercolino it was a way to keep him close, just as he did every day from when he was born until the heartbreaking moment when the machine that had kept him alive for sixty days was disconnected.
A burned heart (Piemme) is the first-person story of a mother who found herself at the center of a sensational case of medical malpractice and who decided to transform her private pain into a mission.
«It is not yet time for mourning», she explains to us when we reach her on the day of the first official presentation of the book at the Feltrinelli in Naples. “Before I have to get justice for Domenico. I promised him when I watched over him in the hospital after his burned heart transplant and for a good sixty days he remained attached to the ECMO, the machine that takes care of the functions of that new heart that was supposed to guarantee him a peaceful life and a future and which never started beating. I saw him getting worse day after day, his color fading, a little body fighting like a warrior, resisting far beyond what the doctors expected.”
And it was that pact of trust betrayed with the doctors that transformed a personal story of suffering into a battle.
«If Domenico hadn’t resisted so long, the truth that they kept hidden from me would probably never have emerged. An unsuccessful transplant can happen, but there was so much more. What alarmed me, when the official version was that they would try another transplant and that Domenico was at the top of the waiting list for a second heart, was a phrase from a nurse: “Mind your own business.” I then contacted a lawyer, Francesco Petruzzi, who knew how to proceed, and soon a very different truth emerged from the one they were telling me, in the hope that the serious errors that condemned Domenico to death would not come to light. I felt betrayed by those to whom I had trusted.”
We have always seen her at the forefront of this battle for justice, supported by her lawyer.
«My husband is always with me, he is fundamental for the family, but he works all day and then he has a different character from mine, and the pain has broken him. I can’t afford it for my other two children, Anthony, in sixth grade, and Giovanna, who is in her last year of nursery school. And why I, Domenico, continue to feel him present, in my memories, in the many photos I took of him. I talk to him. I also wanted to write the book to fix within me those few years in which we had him with us and I know that one day I will find him again.”
Domenico, he says, «he was an always smiling child. Forced into long hospitalizations, he was not afraid: it was enough for him that I was close to him. When he was well he couldn’t sit still, he also played football with his older brother and loved listening to music. Only at night did it make him restless, he would wake up screaming, but all I had to do was run to his bed and he would be reassured. I tried to make him live like a normal child, with all the attention possible due to his pathologythe twelve different medicines to be administered every day. But I also took him to the seaside, in the cooler hours, under the umbrella: he loved being with the other children, watching TV and videos on YouTube, playing. He started talking.”
«We were preparing to celebrate Christmas, the gifts were ready under the tree and we had organized a pizza dinner with a family of our friends, when on the evening of December 22nd the phone call came that changed everything: she was the doctor at Monaldi, she told me that there was a heart for Domenico, a four-year-old boy from Bolzano who hadn’t made it. Immense pain for another mother, hope for us. I had to take Domenico to hospital immediately. Everyone around me was rejoicing, but I had a bad feeling about it. There was no logical reason: I knew that this was Domenico’s only chance of recovery. And instead it all went wrong. I, who have always understood my role as a mother as protection, who since the birth of my first-born Anthony have always, by choice, only wanted to be a mother, I should have listened to that voice.”
A Foundation was born in Domenico’s name.
«My idea, to give meaning to my son’s death, to keep his memory alive and to support families who find themselves in the same situation as us. It was a project that I would have liked to develop calmly, but which had to be made operational immediately because, after Domenico’s death, we realized that scam initiatives were emerging in his name, to raise funds with fake IBANs.”
Patrizia Mercolino is invited to talk about her story and the Foundation at public events, in schools, both in Campania and in other parts of Italy.
«I always carry my daughter Giovanna with me. Fighting for Domenico must not take away my love and time from my other children, who however proved to be very mature, just as they were fond of the little one in the house.”
A few hours after the first public presentation of his book he shows no worries. He is not intimidated by the fact that he only has eighth grade, that he is not familiar with books, that he has lived a simple and private life until the tragedy.
«Domenico gives me the courage and what happened to us made me discover a strength that I didn’t know I had, a determination to follow my path, the only one who gives meaning to my life at this moment. I hope I can be an example to other parents and that tragedies like the one that happened to me should never happen again.”
