The approach to Vatican Correspondent Nicole Winfield came from a member of a task force that had investigated care at Italy’s foremost pediatric facility, known as “the pope’s hospital.” The contact feared that serious concerns raised by the task force hadn’t been addressed two years later.
That tip, in late 2015, set the AP on a 20-month investigation of the Bambino Gesu (Baby Jesus) Pediatric Hospital. Winfield teamed up with London-based Medical Writer Maria Cheng to reveal a dark chapter in the facility's history. They found that children sometimes paid the price as administrators tried to make the money-losing enterprise turn a profit, and Vatican officials took pains to keep the concerns quiet.
Their work earns the Beat of the Week.
Among the investigation’s findings:
— Overcrowding and poor hygiene contributed to deadly infection, including one 21-month superbug outbreak in the cancer ward that killed eight children.
— To save money, disposable equipment and other materials were at times used improperly, with a one-time order of cheap needles breaking when injected into tiny veins.
— Doctors were so pressured to maximize operating-room turnover that patients were sometimes brought out of anesthesia too quickly.
In Rome, Winfield interviewed current and past hospital staff, some through her own contacts and others provided by the task force member, an American nurse named Coleen McMahon. Winfield also dug through medical records, civil court rulings, hospital and Vatican emails and five years of union complaints, and interviewed lawyers, patients and families who had won lawsuits against the hospital. She even flew to Las Vegas one weekend to speak with McMahon on camera.
Cheng also flew to Rome. She dug into the medical side of the story, gauging the seriousness of the findings by sounding out experts in anesthesiology, oncology, virology, medical ethics and other specialties. She interviewed some of the world’s top doctors, and her research into journals discovered the superbug outbreak that had not before been reported outside medical publications.
When Winfield asked the hospital for comment at the end of 2016, the hospital issued a detailed denial, threatened legal action and revealed the existence of a second report, by Sister Carol Keehan, an American Catholic health care expert.
That’s when another aspect of the story became clear: Instead of informing Italian health authorities who pay the hospital’s bills about the numerous problems discovered by the task force, the Vatican commissioned a second investigation that spent three days at the hospital and concluded that everything was fine.
Hospital officials initially called the AP story a hoax and threatened legal action.
Mariella Enoc, president of Bambino Gesu Pediatric Hospital since 2015, meets with journalists before an event to release the hospital's annual report at the Vatican, July 4, 2017, one day after the AP reported that patient care at the prestigious facility suffered under a drive for profits.
AP Photo / Alessandra Tarantino
Registered nurse Coleen McMahon, a specialist in pediatric program development, visits a patient at a pediatric medical facility in Las Vegas, Sept. 10, 2016. After visiting the Vatican's Bambino Gesu Pediatric Hospital in late 2013 she wrote to Pope Francis to voice concern about what she observed. When she felt those concerns had not been adequately addressed, she later tipped AP.
AP Photo / John Locher
Pope Francis is surrounded by children as he speaks with patients and caregivers from the Vatican's Bambino Gesu Pediatric Hospital, Dec. 15, 2016. “Bambino Gesu has had a history that hasn't always been good,” the pope said, jettisoning his prepared remarks to decry the temptation to “transform a good thing like a children's hospital into a business, and make a business where doctors become businessmen and nurses become businessmen...!”
AP Photo / Alessandra Tarantino
Federica Bianchi talks with her twin sons at their home in Rome, Sept. 29, 2016. In 2015, Bianchi brought Edoardo to Bambino Gesu's crowded emergency room with breathing problems. He improved, but he and his brother then came down with another illness, apparently contracted at the hospital, that caused severe diarrhea and vomiting. Bambino Gesu sent them home twice before another hospital diagnosed the boys with rotavirus and put them on rehydration drips. "I went to Bambino Gesu because I thought it was the best hospital in Rome," Bianchi said.
AP Photo / Domenico Stinellis
Florinda Galasso of Campobasso, southern Italy, shows, in July 2016, the effects of a stroke she suffered during open-heart surgery at the Vatican's Bambino Gesu Pediatric Hospital in 2009. Her surgeon had emphasized a 95 percent success rate although Galasso was at higher risk for a stroke given her medical history and the rare procedure planned. She was left nearly paralyzed on her left side, walks with difficulty and is nearly blind in her left eye. Galasso sued the hospital for lack of informed consent and won.
AP Photo / Alessandra Tarantino
U.S. first lady Melania Trump plays with children during her visit to the Vatican's Bambino Gesu Pediatric Hospital, May 24, 2017. Two sharply divergent Vatican-commissioned reports about the facility underscore the controversies that have afflicted Italy’s premier children’s hospital, which draws top-notch surgeons and prominent visitors.
Pool Photo / Remo Casilli via AP
An entrance to the Vatican's Bambino Gesu Pediatric Hospital, Nov. 26, 2016.
AP Photo / Domenico Stinellis
When the AP story moved July 3, hospital officials called the report a hoax and again threatened legal action. A day later, however, Vatican officials conceded that there had been problems and that the hospital was working to fix them.
The multi-format package was featured in newspapers across the world. NewsWhip showed 140 uses for the main bar, 135 for the Latest and 42 for the abridged. The Tuesday follow-up story saw 138 hits, and 117 for the Latest. Engagement for the main bar averaged 1.42 minutes, peaking at times above 4 minutes. (The next-most-engaged stories that day were a couple of pieces on President Trump at about 45 seconds). The video, produced by Jo Mateus in London, received 44 hits on 13 channels in Teletrax.
For their tenacious reporting into shortcomings at the Vatican’s showcase children’s hospital, Winfield and Cheng share this week’s $500 Beat of the Week prize.