German palliative care nurse convicted of murdering 10 people to reduce workload.
Executive Director,
A German palliative care nurse was convicted in the murders of 10 people and attempted murder of another 27 people. According to the Reuters report on November 5:
A palliative nurse was convicted on Wednesday of the murder of 10 patients with lethal injections and the attempted murder of 27 others and was handed a life sentence by a German court.
Prosecutors had argued that the nurse injected his mostly elderly patients with painkillers or sedatives to ease his workload at night.
The court found the crimes to be particularly severe and suggested this should affect the ability to be paroled after 15 years.
An article by Kim Ga-yeon for The Chosun Daily reported that:
Investigations revealed that between December 2023 and May 2024, while working at a hospital in Würselen, the man administered large doses of painkillers and sedatives to elderly patients during night shifts to reduce his workload.
Among the drugs used in the crimes was Midazolam, a sedative used in some U.S. states for executions.
A’s defense lawyer argued for acquittal, stating that it could not be conclusively determined that the victims, who had serious illnesses, died due to the drugs. The defendant claimed, “Sleep is the best medicine,” and “I only tried to take good care of the patients by putting them to sleep, and I didn’t know the drugs would be that fatal.”
The prosecution stated, “A worked without passion or motivation. He did not empathize or feel compassion for the patients. He only got annoyed when encountering patients who required a higher level of care.” They added, “Even during the trial, A showed no sign of remorse.”
The prosecution also revealed that they are investigating the possibility of unidentified victims and noted, “A may face trial again.”
This is not the first conviction of a German nurse for murdering patients.
Niels Högel's, a former German nurse was convicted and given a life sentence for killing 85 patients while working in two hospitals in northern Germany. Högel's was suspected in the deaths of more than 100 people.
More known cases of medical murder.
In December 2016, in Italy, an emergency room anaesthetist Leonardo Cazzaniga, 60, and nurse Laura Taroni, 40, were arrested for the deaths of at least five patients but prosecutors were examining the medical files of more than 50.
Charles Cullen, a nurse who was also a medical serial killer in the United States. known as the 'Angel
of Death' murdered at least 40 patients to become one of America's
worst serial killers spoke from prison to chillingly claim: 'I thought I
was helping.'
Dr Michael Swango
is believed to have killed 35 - 60 patients, and similar to Cullen, he
was simply asked to resign, or moved to another medical center.
Aino Nykopp-Koski is a nurse who was convicted of killing 5 patients in Finland.
In March, 2013 Dr Virginia Soares de Souza was arrested in Brazil and is suspected of killing 300 patients.
Then there is Dr Harold Shipman, who was convicted of killing 15 people in England but is suspected to have killed between 250 and 400 of his patients.
Then there is the case of William Melchert-Dinkel, the Minnesota nurse who was convicted of 2 counts of assisted suicide for counselling depressed people to die by suicide.
In August 2024, Professor Christopher Lyon published a research article concerning healthcare serial killers. The information in this report must be read to understand the reality in Canada, where there are a few doctors and nurse practitioners who carry-out a high percentage of the euthanasia deaths.
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