Story By:  Ana Marjanovic, Sub-Editor: Michael Leidig, Agency:  Newsflash

A cancer patient died with his face eaten alive by maggots after he ignored doctors’ advice after leaving hospital.

This gruesome photo of his last moments alive shows his face and neck swarming with maggots emerging from deep wounds around his mouth.

He died soon after of a heart attack.

The 49-year-old shepherd had cancer of the tongue and lungs and was undergoing radiotherapy at a hospital in Timisoara, Romania.

But after being discharged from hospital, he reportedly removed his feeding tube, refused to eat, and started smoking again.

Just days later, a family member found him unconscious and covered in maggots and called paramedics.

He was rushed from his home in Iermata to the Arad County Emergency Clinical Hospital on 15th June.

He arrived unconscious, starved, in a state of toxic and septic shock, and with his face and neck covered in maggots.

Medics found that the maggots were emerging from ruptures in his face, as well as from his tracheostomy tube.

He was diagnosed with a gastrostomy site infection, necrotic wounds, an infection of the deep neck tissues, and bleeding in the neck.

He was transferred to the intensive care ward but died the following day to a cardiopulmonary arrest.

In a statement, the hospital’s press office said: “The medical staff involved in the care of this patient did everything humanly possible to provide the necessary assistance and medical care.”

But the Arad Public Health Department has since sanctioned four members of hospital staff for violating medical protocols.

The attending physician from the Oncology Department was fined for not providing the patient’s medical history.

The chief physician of the ICU No. 2 was issued a warning for continuous non-supervision of the department’s activity.

The head nurse of the same ward was issued a warning for continuous non-supervision of the care provided to the patient by medical staff.

And the nurse from the same ward who treated the patient was fined for only bandaging him once, when he should have been bandaged several times.

The medical staff will likely appeal the sanctions, say reports.