Man held over gruesome attack on elderly patient

Rome Aug 10 (IANS/AKI) Police in Italy s southern port city of Taranto on Thursday arrested a 42-year-old man accused of attacking an elderly woman in a hospital ward fracturing her skull and causing a brain haemorrhage.

The woman 73-year-old Adriana Dursi is in a coma the Taranto s Santissima Annunziata hospital s intensive care unit after she was struck her on the back of the head with a blunt object on Wednesday.

Police said they identified the man from video security camera images after the attack on Dursi an Alzheimer s disease sufferer which took place after she was admitted to the hospital s observation ward on Wednesday.

Local newspaper La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno named Dursi s suspected attacker as Giovanni Maggio.

Maggio came to the Santissima Annunziata s emergency room on Wednesday but refused to be examined and doctors there said they noted he was in a disturbed mental state the daily reported.

He allegedly attacked Dursi while her son had briefly left the observation ward. Dursi s son said he immediately noticed blood trickling from the back of his mother s head when he returned to the ward and alerted staff.

--IANS/AKI
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