The death occurred on 28 May, 2020, after the 42-year-old patient had waited six hours to be seen at the General Emergency Department of Hospital de Santo André, in Leiria, which is part of the Leiria Hospital Center (CHL).

The CHL states that its Board of Directors opened an inquiry process on 3 June, 2020 to investigate the circumstances in which the death occurred.

Ended on 2 September the inquiry concluded “on the existence of evidences of the likely liability of two health professionals involved in the patient care”.

The Board of Directors therefore decided “the establishment of disciplinary proceedings against one of the two health professionals linked to the CHL by employment contract”

Following this death, and after a communication from the Hospital de Santo André, the Public Prosecutor's Office opened an inquiry, on 28 May, 2020, to investigate “a crime of homicide by negligence”.

In June 2020, the president of the Regional Section of the Centro da Ordem dos Médicos, Carlos Cortes, told the Lusa agency that it was “a situation of a 42-year-old patient with chest pain, who waited six hours to be seen at the emergencies, ending up dying with a heart attack”.

According to Carlos Cortes, taking into account the patient's complaints, “it was a situation to be attended to immediately”.

Not wanting to go forward with any hypothesis about the way triage was carried out, the official recalled, however, that this method was implemented “precisely so that patients are not treated in order of arrival, but due to of the seriousness of the situation”. In the day of the death in the hospital they gave him a yellow bracelet usually used for no severe cases.

“A chest pain on the left, for no apparent reason, cannot have this waiting time”, warned Carlos Cortes, considering at the time that there was “a failure that needs to be investigated”.