The director of the University Hospital Zurich (USZ), Monika Jänicke (photo), expressed in an interview her gratitude to the informant who initiated investigations into the irregularities found at the heart surgery clinic.

“It deserves all our respect,” Jänicke told the SonntagsZeitung newspaper. The “whistleblower”, a former heart surgeon from the same clinic, had publicly reported the irregularities and later raised the issue several times, said the hospital CEO in an interview published on Sunday.

Jänicke declined to comment on the fact that the whistleblower lost his job in this case. This is a matter of the past, said Jänicke, who became CEO of the hospital only later, in 2023. The issue of compensation will definitely be included in the analysis of the report published last Tuesday, she said.

The administrative investigation found serious deficiencies in the heart surgery clinic, which recorded an above average mortality rate. According to the data, in the period between 2016 and 2020, out of about 4,500 surgeries, there were 68 to 74 more deaths than could have been statistically expected.

In those years, the Zurich heart surgery clinic was directed by the Italian professor Francesco Maisano, who was let go in 2020 and is now head physician at the San Raffaele Hospital in Milan. At the centre of the scandal is the so-called Cardioband, a heart valve prosthesis developed by a company in which Maisano had a stake, and whose use may be linked to the excess of deaths highlighted in the report.

It is still too early to talk about compensation for the victims and their families, Jänicke said. “But it could become a topic of discussion,” she added.

swissinfo.ch, 10-5--2026