A team of surgical staff in San Jose de Capilla del Senor Hospital, in the district of Exaltacion de la Cruz, in Buenos Aires have been sacked for taking selfies mid-operation and posting them on social media. The images were taken during an operation and posted on the social media account of one of the surgeons. The photos show the medical team looking at the camera with their surgical masks and gowns on. Those suspended included a surgeon, an anesthesiologist, two surgical assistants and a surgical nurse.

The photos were posted on surgeon’s Lorena Olguin’s social media account, although she wasn’t the one to click pictures. Olguin has since apologised and told local media, “I have been really affected by all of this. I would like to publicly apologise to the people of Capilla for having visually offended them with these images, it was not the intention of any of us that all this should happen.” She further said, “That day there were several surgeries, random photos were taken, there was talk of selfies, at no time did I pick up my mobile phone. I was operating, they said ‘photo’, I looked at the camera instinctively, later I liked the images, I uploaded them and now all this has happened, there is no way to justify it.”

Medical Staff Taking Selfies Mid-Operation, Lead to Suspension

Surgeons sacked after taking selfies in mid-operation. (Bueno Aires Times)

One of the photo shows three of them standing over the patient lying on the operating table, and another with the whole team showing the equipment used in the surgery and bits of gauze with blood on it. The Health Secretary of Exaltacion de la Cruz, Ricardo Algranti told the press that they have suspended all of those shown in the photo because they consider it irresponsible behaviour and the hospital’s director immediately opened an administrative investigation into their actions.

He further said, “The legal department will determine the degree of responsibility of each of those who intervened and the sanction that is to be applied.” According to the local health secretary, the intervention in which the selfie was taken was a gastrointestinal operation. He concluded by saying, “It’s all rather unseemly, an embarrassing situation, but an inescapable truth.”

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Aug 03, 2018 04:39 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).