Μake us preferred on Google New details are emerging about the circumstances surrounding the collapse and death of singer Giorgos Mazonakis at a medical clinic in Athens’ Kolonaki neighborhood. In new statements, two employees describe what they say happened during the critical hours and allege that efforts were made to conceal important information from their initial accounts to police.
Their testimonies concern the treatment Mazonakis was undergoing, the actions taken after he collapsed and events that allegedly took place in the days leading up to his death.
“She Called Me While She Was at the Police Station”
MEGA reported the allegations made by a 56-year-old nurse and a 28-year-old woman who worked as a secretary at the clinic. Both said they were asked on the first day to lie about what had happened in an apparent attempt, in their view, to obscure critical information. They have since returned to provide new statements.
“In my statement to the police, the 56-year-old doctor told me what to say. She called me when she was already at the police station and before I went to give my statement. She told me to say that Mazonakis had come to the clinic around 3 to 3:30 p.m. She also told me not to say anything about the other colleagues being there during the incident and not to mention the hydrotherapy that had taken place the day before his death,” the 56-year-old nurse testified.
The two employees described what they said they witnessed, from the moment Mazonakis entered the clinic until emergency medical personnel from Greece’s National Center for Emergency Care arrived.
“When I went inside, Mazonakis had his legs raised and was extremely pale all over. I saw the doctor performing CPR. The doctors asked for adrenaline,” the nurse said.
The secretary said that shortly before 4 p.m. she heard signs of a commotion, with doors opening and closing for about five to six minutes as the nurses’ names were being called.
“I didn’t know exactly what was happening. At that time, I heard the doctor call her husband. In the middle of the commotion, around 4, she also called the doctor. I don’t remember whether it was before or after 4. I heard someone shout ‘adrenaline,’ and the doctor got up and went inside,” she said.
According to the employees, the 56-year-old doctor informed her husband and ordered calls to be made for assistance, both to an anesthesiologist and to the person who had supplied the clinic with its defibrillator.
“When they called the doctor, he shouted ‘oxygen.’ The 56-year-old came to the room where I was and told me to call the anesthesiologist and ask her whether there was an antidote for propofol,” the nurse said.
The anesthesiologist, she added, occasionally visited the clinic and assisted the doctor with difficult intravenous procedures. “That day, I had not heard the word propofol before,” she said.
The two employees said the 56-year-old doctor had administered sedation and that when she saw Mazonakis collapse, she did not know what she was supposed to do.
“I was concerned because I considered the treatment very invasive, but I had never expressed this to them. All the employees were concerned, but we had not expressed it to them because of certain incidents,” the nurse said.
She said some patients had experienced severe drops in blood pressure and briefly collapsed after the treatment before immediately recovering. Others, she said, were swollen afterward. The doctor would tell them to wait before getting up from the machine after being disconnected and would advise them to consume protein to reduce the swelling.
What the Employees Said About the 58-Year-Old Doctor
In their testimonies, both the 56-year-old nurse and the 28-year-old secretary distinguished between the two doctors facing charges. Their accounts indicate that they attribute the main responsibility for the singer’s death to the 56-year-old doctor, while still considering her 58-year-old husband responsible for aspects of what had been taking place at the clinic for years.
“The doctor alone uses these machines. There is also the 58-year-old doctor’s stem-cell treatment, the hydrotherapy, which is carried out by a nurse. Patients of both doctors undergo it,” the 28-year-old secretary said.
The nurse said the 56-year-old doctor was primarily occupied with one of the machines, sometimes canceling other appointments with her patients to perform treatments and even conducting them on weekends.
“The 58-year-old also saw patients on Saturdays. On Saturdays, there was the 58-year-old’s secretary, who came only on Saturdays for this,” she said.
The employees also alleged that, in their initial statements to police just hours after Mazonakis’ death, all clinic staff falsely reported the time the singer arrived and the time the doctor called for help. They also said they deliberately made no mention of the hydrotherapy performed on Tuesday or of the telephone calls to the defibrillator supplier and the anesthesiologist.
“Some years ago, we had done the hydrotherapy together with Mazonakis. About two months ago, the hydrotherapy machine was moved to the new clinic because it no longer fit at the original one, as a second plasmapheresis machine had been added,” the nurse said.
She added that the anesthesiologist who was working at the clinic at the time initially operated the hydrotherapy machine.
“The doctor had told me that it was a detox machine. I don’t know whether it was a joint decision by the doctors to acquire it. I know that the machine belonged to the 56-year-old,” she said.
The employees’ accounts also describe what they characterized as amateurish practices and a lack of preparation by the two doctors, while saying they carried out their instructions as part of their daily work.
“I also drew blood for the Miracell machine. Sometimes the 58-year-old doctor also administered intravenous preparations, but only vitamins, and he always checked what each patient would receive. He also prescribed homeopathic medicines,” the nurse said.
The two doctors facing charges are being kept informed of developments in the case and are awaiting the completion of the case file while being held at Korydallos Prison, where they are preparing their defense strategy.
Why Was the Plasmapheresis Treatment Stopped?
Meanwhile, the nurses who worked at the Kolonaki clinic are also at the center of the investigation as witnesses.
The 56-year-old nurse gave a minute-by-minute account of what she said happened at the clinic during Mazonakis’ plasmapheresis treatment. According to her testimony, the treatment was interrupted at one point after the singer’s vein ruptured.
“While I was in the room with the other patient, around 4 I heard the doctor, or she may have told someone to call the doctor — I don’t remember exactly. Earlier, I had heard the doctor ask the other nurse to bring a bedpan for Mazonakis. It has happened many times that a patient needs to use a bedpan during treatment. It is very common because of the fluids,” she said.
“Then the treatment continued normally. I think they interrupted it at some point because the vein ruptured, but I cannot be certain because I did not enter the room. From that moment until they called the doctor, I did not notice anything happening.”
