Italian Health Minister Ferruccio Fazio apologised Monday for a fight between doctors during a child’s delivery that may have left the newborn with brain damage. Five people have been put under investigation, including the two medics who came to blows, as prosecutors seek to establish whether the bust-up led to complications or a damaging delay in a cesarean section at a public hospital in Messina. Laura Salpietro, 30, had to have her uterus removed after haemorrhaging during birth on Thursday, when her boy Antonio suffered two heart attacks.

The boy has come out of an induced coma and is breathing unassisted but his situation is critical and it will not be clear for some time whether he has suffered brain damage. The doctors reportedly started brawling after rowing over which of them should do the C-section. ”I apologise to the lady and her family for what happened in the name of the doctors and of the health service, and I say that as a doctor myself,” Ferruccio said after visiting Salpietro. ”I tried to give the family some words of comfort and reassure them that the state will support them”. photo: Italian Health Minister Ferruccio Fazio speaks to reporters.