Does Canada's euthanasia law enable healthcare serial killing.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Christopher Lyon

Professor Christopher Lyon, who teaches at the University of York in the UK, researches and concludes that Canada's (MAiD) euthanasia law enables healthcare serial killers (HSK).

Lyon's research was published by HEC Forum on August 2, 2024 under the title: Canada's Medical Assistance in Dying System can Enable Healthcare Serial Killing. 

(Read the research article with references (Link).

Healthcare serial killers (HSK) is not a new phenomenon. Lyon writes about several well known HSK's, and examines what enable them to remain undetected for long periods of time while killing their patients.

Lyon outlines his article by stating:

Criminal HSK appears globally. Offenders may kill fewer than ten to hundreds of people. They are often challenging to detect and stop due to job-related access to means of killing, responsibility for record-keeping, trusted role, professional insularity and protectionism, poor oversight, and victims whose deaths are less likely to attract suspicion due to age, illness, or existing likelihood of dying. Ambiguous or divergent legal and medical concepts and practices can make prosecuting HSK challenging.

He continues:

Pennsylvania nurse linked to 17 nursing home deaths

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

A Pennsylvania nurse proves why you cannot trust every medical professional with your life.

Jon Haworth reported for ABC news on November 3, that:

A former Pennsylvania nurse who, in May, had been accused of killing two patients with doses of insulin, now faces more murder charges. She has confessed to trying to kill 19 additional people at several locations, authorities said Thursday.

Heather Pressdee, 41, is accused of administering excessive amounts of insulin to patients in her care, some of whom were diabetic and required insulin, and some of whom were not, according to the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office.

In total, 17 patients died who had been cared for by Pressdee.

According to Haworth, Pennsylvania's Attorney General's Office stated:

"The allegations against Ms. Pressdee are disturbing. It is hard to comprehend how a nurse, trusted to care for her patients, could choose to deliberately and systematically harm them,” said Pennsylvania Attorney General Michelle Henry. "The damage done to the victims and their loved ones cannot be overstated. Every person in a medical or care facility should feel safe and cared for, and my office will work tirelessly to hold the defendant accountable for her crimes and protect care-dependent Pennsylvanians from future harm."

Pressdee has now been charged with 2 counts of first-degree murder, 17 counts of attempted murder and 19 counts of neglect of a care-dependent person.

Haworth reported that The Attorney General's Office stated that:

"The alleged crimes happened while Pressdee was employed as a registered nurse at the following facilities: Concordia at Rebecca Residence; Belair Healthcare and Rehabilitation (Guardian); Quality Life Services Chicora; Premier Armstrong Rehabilitation and Nursing Center; and Sunnyview Rehabilitation and Nursing Center," officials said. "Pressdee typically administered the insulin during overnight shifts when staffing was low and the emergencies would not prompt immediate hospitalization."

The victims ranged in age from 43 to 104.

Similar to the Elizabeth Wettlaufer murders in London and Woodstock, Ontario Canada, the crimes occurred over several years and there was minimal oversight over the medications at the care homes. Similar to the Wetlaufer case, the news article related to the original charges in May 2023 stated that:

The complaint states that Pressdee has an alleged pattern of "being disciplined for abusive behavior towards patients and/or staff" at several other facilities and either resigned from them or was terminated.

Both Wettlaufer and Pressdee received serious complaints against them and were either fired or resigned their positions. But they were still able to find employment as nurses in other facilities.

During the Wettlaufer trial in Canada, I stated that the deaths were only a tip on the iceberg based on the lack of oversight and the vulnerability of those who were killed. My position remains the same. There may be many more murders occurring in care homes throughout Canada and the USA.

Canada's euthanasia law lacks the same type of oversight. In Canada a person is approved to be killed when two doctors or nurse practitioners agree that the person qualifies. The law only requires that the doctors and nurse practitioners be of the opinion that the person meet the criteria of the law. In other words, there is no effective oversight of the law and yet 13,241 Canadians reportedly died by euthanasia in 2022.

Report into Wettlaufer deaths will not protect people from suspicious euthanasia deaths.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Elizabeth Wettlaufer

In June 2017, Elizabeth Wettlaufer, a former nurse who confessed to killing 8 people nursing homes in Woodstock and London Ontario, was sentenced to 25 years without eligibility for parole. Justice Thomas stated, during the sentencing:

"It is a complete betrayal of trust when a caregiver does not prolong life, but terminates it," 

"She was the shadow of death that passed over them on the night shift where she supervised."

I agree with Justice Thomas, but I wondered how to interpret this statement now that"MAiD" euthanasia is legal in Canada?

Justice Eileen Gillese

On July 31, Justice Eileen Gillese made 91 recommendations in her 4 volume 1441 page report concluding the Public Inquiry into the Safety and Security of Residents in the Long-term Care Homes System. The report made some good statements. 

Under the heading that these deaths were not "mercy killings" the report stated:

No one has the right to define the value and meaning of someone else’s life and decide when it is time for that life to be over. This statement is particularly true for healthcare providers, who have been given the privilege and power of caring for us. The vulnerable members of our communities who rely on the long-term care system have lives with value and meaning for them and their loved ones. It is their right – and our collective obligation – to ensure that they live out their lives in safety and security, and with dignity.

The report recognizes that a threat to patients exists. Under the heading, the threat has not passed, the report comments on healthcare serial killers:

The murders Elizabeth Wettlaufer committed while working as a nurse are shocking and tragic. However, they are not unprecedented. A growing body of research and literature shows that healthcare serial killing is a phenomenon which, while rare, is long-standing and universal in its reach, with documented cases dating back to the 1800s. Expert evidence presented in this Inquiry shows that since 1970, 90 healthcare serial killers have been convicted throughout the world, including in Canada, the United States, and Western Europe. Even during this Inquiry, the media reported the arrests of two more alleged healthcare serial killers. In July 2018, a British healthcare worker was arrested on the suspicion that she had murdered eight babies and tried to kill six others while she worked at the Countess of Chester Hospital in northwestern England. Days later, there were reports that a Japanese nurse had been arrested on the suspicion that she injected disinfectant into intravenous bags, killing approximately 20 elderly patients in her care at a Yokohama hospital.

The report stated that healthcare serial killers are rare but the number of deaths attributed to these killers is significant. The report states:

Professor Crofts Yorker acknowledges that the number of healthcare serial killers is quite small, as is the number of serial killers generally. However, while the known number of healthcare serial killers is small, the number of victims is not. The 90 healthcare serial killers convicted since 1970 have been found guilty of murdering at least 450 patients. They have also been convicted of assault or grave bodily injury involving at least 150 other patients. But, according to Professor Crofts Yorker, those figures significantly understate the actual number of victims: the total number of suspicious deaths attributed to the 90 convicted healthcare serial killers exceeds 2,600. 

Furthermore, after the prosecution of a healthcare serial killer is complete, it is not unusual for the number of deaths linked to a particular HCSK to be revised upward. For example, German nurse Niels Högel was sentenced in 2008 for attempted murder... In November 2017, the total number of victims attributed to Högel was revised to 106, with further suspicious deaths still under investigation. In January 2018, German prosecutors charged Högel with the murder of 97 additional patients. Högel subsequently admitted to killing these patients. Investigators and prosecutors ultimately indicated he may have killed more than 200 people. Dr. Harold Shipman, a British physician, is another such example. Shipman was convicted of murdering 15 patients in 2000. A public inquiry concluded that he had in fact killed 215 of his patients over the course of his career, and it identified a further 45 deaths associated with Dr. Shipman as suspicious.

There are more healthcare serial killers:

In December 2016, an Italian 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

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. He 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 was suspected of killing 300 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 commit suicide.

The three principal findings in the report were:

• if Wettlaufer had not confessed, the Offences would not have been discovered; 
• the Offences were the result of systemic vulnerabilities, and, therefore, no findings of individual misconduct are warranted; and 
• the long-term care system is strained but not broken.

Will the recommendations prevent further abuse?

Wettlaufer was not caught until she confessed to a counselor that she had killed and attempted to kill patients. She killed 8 people without being caught.

Several of the recommendations concern the need for accurate information on the death certificate to uncover signs of abuse within a care home, etc.

It is interesting that Canada's euthanasia law requires the doctor/nurse practitioner who carries out the euthanasia death to lie on the death certificate. The law requires the death certificate to state that the cause of death was the "medical condition" that the person was living with rather than death by MAiD (euthanasia).

Based on the recommendations in the Public Inquiry into the Safety and Security of Residents in the Long-term Care Homes System report, a person will be required to have accurate and complete information on the death certificate, unless they die from euthanasia (lethal injection).

Canada's euthanasia law requires that the doctor or nurse practitioner who cause death by euthanasia (MAiD) to also report the death. There is no independent authority reporting that the euthanasia death fulfilled the criteria of the law. This self-reporting system enables doctors or nurse practitioners to hide the facts when the euthanasia death was outside of the law/questionable or it enables them to not report every MAiD death.

For instance, the third report from Québec's euthanasia commission indicates that doctors did not report 142 of the euthanasia deaths.

A NEJM study on the practice of euthanasia in the Flanders region of Belgium found that in 2013 1.7% of all deaths (more than 1000 deaths) were assisted deaths without explicit request and more than 40% of the assisted deaths were not reported.

A NEJM study analyzing the Netherlands euthanasia experience found that there were 431 assisted deaths without explicit request in 2015 in the Netherlands and 23% of the assisted deaths were not reported.

I agree with the report that Wettlaufer's killings were not motivated by "mercy" but I also recognize that many Canadian doctors are now legally lethally injecting their patients, which will lead to more abuse based on the nature of the act and the health conditions of the patients.

It is not safe to give physicians/nurse practitioners, or others, the right in law to cause death.

Canada's euthanasia law gives medical professionals, who are willing to kill their patients the legal right to proceed.

Canadians must go past their fear of dying a bad death and realize that Canada's euthanasia law is fatally flawed. 

The law provides no effective oversight of the law while giving physicians and nurse practitioners the right in law to kill you.

CARP, Wettlaufer and Euthanasia.

By Adrian Rhodes

CARP’s magazine Zoomer published an article in January 2019, on Elizabeth Wettlaufer, the nurse who murdered her patients while working in long-term care homes in Ontario. The article by Alex Roslin is titled: Looking at the Complete System Failure that led to the Wetlauffer Murders. Wettlaufer cited psychological reasons, in part – she was stressed because of poor working conditions. This does not excuse the murders, but it also does not allow for the use of those murders to justify better care.

Elizabeth Wettlaufer

In this political climate, to argue that better care is needed because otherwise patients will be at risk from the Wettlaufers of the world is disingenuous. Patients are already at risk in “…an environment where patients are disrespected, abused – even sometimes murdered.” This environment came about with the legal permission being given by the Canadian government for medical representatives to kill their patients.

The permission to kill is further permission to neglect. One allegation has been made that if one is approved for death, that after approval one’s pain medication is curtailed to ensure that they are competent at the time of injection. The argument has not been made, but I am sure it is in the back of many people’s minds on reading the CARP article – ‘well, at least the patient isn’t suffering’. These statements above are probably shocking, but they are also normalized in our social lives. This is because we are normalizing the act of killing.

It is expected that suffering people will demand death instead of better care. When someone demands care, this is incomprehensible. Consider the Roger Foley case: he was demanding better care and control over his care at home, and he was offered euthanasia instead. In his case, hr publicized the offer and this caused him to become a dubious celebrity as a result. In the meantime, he had doctors and nurses using presence coercion to convince him to die. This was probably because it was good for the organization: he was apparently costing the hospital $1500 per day. So it was all about the money, not the right to care as enshrined in the Charter of Rights. So it is expected that death is preferred over treatment, care or protection of other rights.

So for CARP to be lobbying for changes to care when they are the same organization that sings the virtues of euthanasia comes across as a little precious. Remember, the push is on to save money and to allow those who have dementia – as many of Wettlaufer’s victims did – to get euthanasia. There is a push to kill incompetent people and to kill children by euthanasia. And people have said that this is a virtue, particularly when we consider the responses to Sick Kids Hospital saying they would be willing to euthanize children under 18 without parental consent. The implication is that this organization will kill children in their care – and they argued that killing and letting die are the same act.

The article reported that Wettlaufer’s victim, Maureen Pickering, was given a high dose of insulin – twice. She subsequently died. The coroner’s office representative opined that her death wasn't investigated because “Her death was foreseeable, and it was expected.” Remember, MAiD can be done if “…death is reasonably foreseeable”. So we can argue that Wettlaufer was a euthanasia enthusiast by other means.

Wettlaufer slipped through the safeguards, time and again. She even talked to her friends about the killings. They did nothing. That alone should have triggered charges. The organizations involved did nothing. The care home never told the College of Nurses about Wettlaufer’s shortcomings. They said themselves that nurses were hard to come by and this is why Wettlaufer was kept on. The deaths of elderly people are expected, after all…

The article stated that one relative of a victim said, “It seems to me that all the parties are accessories.” Another family member said, “Nobody is taking any of this seriously.” This is true, but what is also significant about this CARP article is this: CARP is a pro-euthanasia organization. CARP has advocates on staff who decried what happened to those residents while establishing a glaring contradiction with their pro-euthanasia stance.

Wettlaufer got away with these deaths because no one believed that this would happen in such an active way. This is the same reason medical organizations have attempted to impose death on patients such as Candice Lewis and Roger Foley. No one believes professionals would act against the interest of patients, even when they are acting to convince those patients to die.

People aren’t that evil, they just don’t go around killing patients. Except that in Canada, we do. There is one doctor on the West Coast who has already killed over 140 people, skirting the law to do so and without sanction.

To quote the article: “It remains to be seen if the horror of Wettlaufer’s deeds will make a difference.” Yes: people who euthanize will continue, and organizations will become even more monolithic when they attempt to kill. And then the number of deaths will continue to rise.

It is interesting that CARP would deplore the actions of someone who was neglecting patients to the point of euthanizing them. CARP’s advocates: Moses Znaimer and Wanda Morris have stumped for euthanasia, so the two situations – the magazine and its political position and Wettlaufer’s actions – are related. The article says that what Wettlaufer did was ‘shocking’. Canada’s euthanasia law and Carp's pro-euthanasia position is also shocking.

US nurse charged with murder. Assisted suicide laws will not protect people from medical killers.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

George Davis

The assisted suicide lobby argues that legalizing assisted suicide will prevent "underground" killing. They suggest that legalizing and regulating assisted suicide will protect people from illegal acts. 

Today we are hearing the shocking news of a former Texas nurse, George Davis, who has been charged in the murders of two people and causing significant injury to at least 3 others. According to KSLA news:

The affidavit describes seven incidents involving patients at the Peaches and Louis Owen Heart Hospital at CHRISTUS Trinity Mother Frances, five of whom suffered significant injuries and two who are deceased. 

The document names one person who died, Christopher Greenaway, 47, and family members confirm that the second person who died is Perry Frank, age 61, of Grapeland. Frank died on June 22, 2017. He was the band director at Grapeland High School. 

Two others who were left with severe injuries, Joseph Kalina, 58, and Pamela Henderson, 63. It also lists several unnamed patients - a 58-year-old man, a 54-year-old man and a 56-year-old man.

Will assisted suicide laws protect people from medical killers?

In February 2018, Ivo Poppe, a former nurse and Catholic deacon was sentenced to 27 years after being convicted of killing at least 5 people, including his mother, but he indicated that he may have killing at least 20.peoplw

Poppe was arrested in early 2014 after he confided to a psychiatrist that he had "euthanised dozens of people." According to news reports Poppe allegedly killed his first victim in 1978 and his last alleged victim may have been his own mother who died in 2011. Most of the deaths connected to Poppe were done while euthanasia was legal in Belgium.

The Poppe case is similar to the Wetlaufer case in Canada because her crimes remained unknown until she told her psychiatrist that she had killed patients.

There is also Niels Högel's, the German nurse who was convicted of killing 2 patients between 2000 - 2005, and suspected in the deaths of at least 102 people. In December 2016, an Italian emergency room anaesthetist Leonardo Cazzaniga, and nurse Laura Taroni, were arrested in the deaths of at least five patients but prosecutors were examining the medical files of more than 50.

Poppe is not the only medical professional who kills patients in Belgium. 

A study published in the NEJM on March 19, 2015 on the experience with assisted death in Flanders Belgium found that 1.7% of all deaths in the Flanders Belgium, in 2013, were intentionally hastened without explicit request. Based on the data, more than 1000 people were killed in Flanders in 2013 without request.

The Associated Press interviewed Belgian ethicist Freddy Mortier who stated:

Mortier was not happy, however, that the 'hastening of death without explicit request from patients,' which can happen when a patient slumbers into unconsciousness or has lost the capacity for rational judgment, stood at 1.7 percent of cases in 2013. In the Netherlands, that figure was 0.2 percent.

The number of assisted deaths without request are lower in the Netherlands than Belgium, but for Magreet, who is featured in the Fatal Flaws film explaining how her mother died by euthanasia without request in the Netherlands, a few deaths are too many.

Why does this occur?

Euthanasia and assisted suicide laws are designed to cover-up abuse of the law. Laws permitting assisted death require the doctor, who completes the act, to also report the act. These laws are based on a self-reporting system. None of these laws require a third party pre-death assessment or independent oversight of the law. Based on the data from Belgium and the Netherlands, we can conclude that doctors do not self-report abuse of the law.

Further to that, studies indicate that as many as 23% of the assisted deaths are not reported in the Netherlands and 40% of the assisted deaths not reported in Belgium.

Legalizing euthanasia and or assisted suicide does not prevent medical murders or even "underground" killing but rather they give physicians, the right in law, to kill. A right that most physicians do not want to have.

Former Belgian nurse admits to killing 10 - 20 patients.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Ivo Poppe

Ivo Poppe, a former nurse and Catholic Deacon, is on trial in Bruges Belgium for killing patients in a health clinic in Menin Belgium.

News reports state that he admitted to killing 10 - 20 patients but prosecutors are suggesting that he may have killed up to 50 people.

Poppe was originally arrested in early 2014 after he confided to his psychiatrist that he had "euthanised dozens of people." 

This case is similar to the Wetlaufer case in Canada who was also arrested after telling her psychiatrist that she had killed patients.

According to news reports Poppe allegedly killed his first victim in 1978 and his last alleged victim may have been his own mother who died in 2011.

The guardian reported that investigators examined 65 suspicious deaths and Poppe admitted to killing his mother, his step-father and two uncles.

Belgium legalized a very permissive form of euthanasia in 1992 and yet Poppe continued killing patients until 2011. This case once again proves that legalizing euthanasia does not prevent clandestine euthanasia.

Further to that, euthanasia without explicit consent is somewhat common in Belgium.

A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine (March 19, 2015) titled: Recent Trends in Euthanasia and Other End-of-Life Practices in Belgium found that 1.7% of all deaths in the first 6 months on 2013 were euthanasia without explicit request.

The trial of Ivo Poppe is expected to last two weeks.

• Belgium 2015 euthanasia report. Deaths continue to rise.
• Study: Euthanasia represents 4.6% of all deaths in Belgium.

Ontario nurse suspended for withdrawing life support without permission

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Joanna Flynn

CTV News reported that the College of Nurses of Ontario (CNO) suspended nurse, Joanna Flynn, for five months after pleading guilty to professional misconduct for withdrawing life-support without permission. She was previously found not guilty of manslaughter.

According to the CTV News report by Adam Ward:

In its ruling, the committee said Flynn “contravened the standards of practice of the profession and engaged in dishonourable and unprofessional conduct by discontinuing life support for a client without the required medical authorization and failing to record that medical authorization to discontinue life support had been refused by the responsible physician.” 

In March 2014, Flynn removed Deanna Leblanc from life support at Georgian Bay General Hospital. She did so without the permission of a doctor, which she testified was allowed under the guidelines laid out by the CNO.

It is likely that Flynn also withdrew life-support without proper consent. The CTV News report stated: 

A point of contention in her manslaughter trial was whether she coerced Leblanc’s husband for consent. 

Last June, Ontario nurse, Elizabeth Wettlauffer, was sentenced to 25 years in prison after confessing to killing 8 people.

German nurse may have killed more than 100 patients.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Niels Högel

A Reuters News article is reporting that Niels Högel's, the German nurse who was convicted of killing 2 patients between 2000 - 2005, is now suspected to have killed at least 102 people. According to Reuters:

He has confessed to some killings, but police said in August that he could not remember all the details of his actions, prompting them to exhume the remains of 134 people with links to Niels H. to identify further victims. 

The investigation has now turned up evidence leading authorities to suspect Niels H. killed 38 people at a clinic in the northern German city of Oldenburg and 62 at one in nearby Delmenhorst, Oldenburg police and the city’s public prosecutor’s office said in a statement on Thursday. 

That is in addition to two counts of murder for which an Oldenburg court sentenced him in 2015.

In August, German police indicated that Högel's was responsible for at least 86 deaths, Reuters suggests that the death count may continue to rise.

If anyone thinks that Högel's murders could have been prevented if assisted death was legal and regulated in Germany, think again.

None of the euthanasia laws have a mechanism to prevent this type of abuse of the law and all of the euthanasia laws require doctor who lethally inject a person to self-report the death.

A recent Netherlands study indicated that in 2015, 431 assisted deaths were done without explicit request while a Belgian study indicated that in 2013, at least 1000 assisted deaths were done without explicit request.

Medical killing is a world-wide phenomenon.

Suspected medical abuse/murder cases are usually not reported since the medical system lacks effective oversight. When abuse is uncovered, they rarely report the problem to the legal authorities based on fear of lawsuits as in the Elizabeth Wettlauffer case in Ontario.

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 commit suicide.

German nurse may have killed 84 people.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

If you think that safeguards can control euthanasia or that legalizing euthanasia will eliminate medical killings, think again.

First: Euthanasia laws lack effective third-party oversight. All of the laws require two doctors to approve euthanasia or assisted suicide (in Canada nurse practitioners can approve) and once death occurs all of the laws require the physician who carries out the act to self-report the act. No third-party oversight or witness at the time of the death is required. Physicians and nurse practitioners do not self-report abuse of the law.

Second: The abuse of the law that already occurs is usually not reported because the medical system lacks effective oversight and when abuse is uncovered, they rarely report the problem to the legal authorities, often based on fear of lawsuits. Just read about the Elizabeth Wettlauffer case in Ontario.

Now, a former German nurse who was convicted of killing 2 patients between 2000 - 2005 and later found responsible for 33 deaths is suspected of killing 84 people. Deutche Well news reported:

Niels Högel 

Following a three-year probe into all patients under Niels Högel's care, investigators revealed on Monday that the former nurse was responsible for 84 more deaths than initially thought. 

Högel, who is already serving two separate prison sentences, was found to have injected patients with cardiovascular medication at hospitals in the northern towns of Oldenburg and Delmenhorst between 1999 and 2005. His aim was to induce heart failure or circulatory collapse before successfully resuscitating his patients to impress his colleagues. 

He was sentenced in 2008 to seven-and-a-half years for attempted murder after he was discovered trying to give an overdose to a patient. He was then jailed for life in 2015 after being found guilty on six counts of murder, two counts of attempted murder and one charge of battery after his "trick" failed to work. 

However, prosecutors alleged that he had likely killed many more people but kept the charges low to make their case easier to prove. 

During the 2015 trial, Högel also admitted to a psychologist to killing 30 people while working at the clinic in Delmenhorst, having injected the medication into at least 60 patients. Last year, prosecutors estimated the total number of deaths to be 43.

Over three years, investigators said they exhumed and probed 134 bodies for the traces of Högel's cardiovascular medication, raising the number of suspected killings to a further 84.

Oldenburg Police Chief Johann Kühme said the sheer scale of Högel's crimes "leaves us speechless," adding that some cases will never be proved as the bodies had since been cremated. "And as if all that were not enough, we must realize that the real dimension of the killings by Högel is likely many times worse."

The police chief also faulted local health authorities who failed to act as it allegedly came apparent that the death rate at Delmenhorst hospital's intensive care unit almost doubled while Högel worked there. "If the people responsible at the time, particularly at the Oldenburg clinic but also later in Delmenhorst, hadn't hesitated to alert authorities - for example police, prosecutors -" Högel could have been apprehended sooner, Kühme said.

In the Netherlands, where euthanasia has been legal since 2001, a study of deaths in the Netherlands found that 431 people died an assisted death without explicit request in 2015. 

A study examining deaths in the Flanders region of Belgium, where euthanasia has been legal since 2002, found that there were more than 1000 assisted deaths without explicit request in 2013. 

The only way to protect people is by prohibiting euthanasia and assisted suicide and closely monitoring the medical use of drugs and potential medical abuse.

Netherlands study: 431 people were killed without explicit request in 2015

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Every five years the Netherlands conducts a study to determine how people die in the Netherlands and whether or not there are concerns with the euthanasia law.

The data from the 2015 study concerning ending-of-life decisions in the Netherlands was recently published. In 2015 there were 7254 assisted deaths (6672 euthanasia deaths, 150 assisted suicide deaths, 431 termination of life without request) and 18,213 deaths whereby the medical decisions that were intended to bring about the death.

The 2010 Netherlands study of the euthanasia law was published in the Lancet July 11, 2012.

Clear abuse of the euthanasia law.

According to the Netherlands 2015 official euthanasia report there were 5561 reported assisted deaths in 2015 and yet the data from the study indicates that there were 7254 assisted deaths in 2015. Therefore, there were 1693 unreported assisted deaths (approximately 23%) in 2015. 

The 431 terminations of life without explicit request had increased from 310 in 2010.

Let me make this clear. In almost every country, terminations of life without explicit request are considered homicide. Recently an Ontario nurse was sentenced to 25 years in prison for killing 8 nursing home residents in Southern Ontario.

Euthanasia deaths continue to increase.

Based on the five year interval reports:

• In 2005 there were 2425 assisted deaths (20% were not reported and 550 deaths were without explicit request).
• In 2010 there were 4050 assisted deaths (23% were not reported and 310 deaths were without explicit request).
• In 2015 there were 7254 assisted deaths (23% were not reported and 431 deaths were without explicit request).

Recent Netherlands euthanasia stories:

In January 2016, euthanasia was extended to people with severe dementia in the Netherlands.

A study published in the Journal of Psychiatry (Feb 10, 2016) concerning euthanasia for psychiatric reasons in the Netherlands uncovered significant concerns. According to researcher Scott Kim:

...in one EAS case, a woman who died by euthanasia was in her 70s without health problems had decided, with her husband, that they would not live without each other. After her husband died, she lived a life described as a "living hell" that was "meaningless." 

A consultant reported that this woman "did not feel depressed at all. She ate, drank and slept well. She followed the news and undertook activities."

In May, the Netherlands euthanasia clinic lethally injected an otherwise healthy woman who was sexually abused as a child.

In October, the Netherlands government stated that it was planning to extend euthanasia to people who are not sick or dying but claim to have lived a "completed life."

In November, a Dutch journalist reported that he was writing a book about his brother who died by euthanasia based on chronic alcoholism.

In January 2017, a Regional euthanasia Review Committee decided that a forced euthanasia on a woman with dementia, where the doctor sedated the woman by putting the drugs in her coffee and then having the family hold her down for the lethal injection, found that the rules were not followed but the euthanasia was done in "good faith."

It must be noted that a group of Dutch physicians oppose euthanasia for dementia and the Dutch Medical Association oppose changing the law to permit euthanasia for "completed life."

Purchase the Euthanasia Deception documentary and show it in your community.

The euthanasia lobby argue that euthanasia should legalized to regulate and control a practice that happens already. They also claim that euthanasia can be controlled and there is no proof that a slippery slope or incremental extensions will occur.

The latest data from the Netherlands proves that, after legalization, covert euthanasia continues to occur, that regulations, such as the requirement to report all assisted deaths, will be ignored and euthanasia will continue to increase and extend to more human conditions. 

A practical slippery slope exists and the Netherlands experience with euthanasia clearly proves it.