German doctor charged with 15 murders between 2021 and 2024.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

A palliative care doctor in Berlin has been charged with 15 murders of patients who died between September 2021 and July 2024. The doctor was originally charged with 4 murders in August 2024 but investigators have uncovered other deaths. More exhumations on potential victims have been planned.

According to the article by Emily Atkinson that was published by the BBC on April 16, 2025:

A German palliative care doctor has been charged with murdering 15 of his patients using a cocktail of lethal drugs.

Prosecutors in Berlin have accused the 40-year-old of setting fire to the homes of some of his suspected victims to cover his tracks.

He allegedly killed 12 women and three men between September 2021 and July 2024, though prosecutors have said they believe that total could rise.

The doctor, who has not been named due to strict privacy laws in Germany, has not admitted to the charges, prosecutors said.

The article by Atkinson continued:

He is accused of administering an anaesthetic and a muscle relaxant to his patients without their knowledge or consent.

The relaxant "paralysed the respiratory muscles, leading to respiratory arrest and death within minutes", the prosecutor's office said in a statement.

He worked in several German states, and the ages of those whose deaths are being treated as suspicious range from 25 to 94.

Notice how the deaths are described as:

administering an anaesthetic and a muscle relaxant, relaxant "paralysed the respiratory muscles, leading to respiratory arrest

Based on the way he killed, the physician likely received training from a euthanasia group.

The euthanasia lobby will claim that legalizing euthanasia prevents medical murders because euthanasia is an option and it is regulated.

In 2019, Niels Högel, a nurse in Oldenburg, Germany, was convicted of murdering 85 patients from 2000 to 2005, and investigators suspect the true number of victims is far higher. Mr. Högel was found to have administered drug overdoses that caused cardiac arrest so that he could revive the patients and be celebrated as a hero.

Cases of medical practitioners intentionally killing patients is not uncommon. Medical practitioners who have been convicted of murdering patients, include: Dr. Harold Shipman, Charles Cullen, Dr Virginia Soares de Souza, Aino Nykopp-Koski and Dr. Michael Swango.

Professor Christopher Lyon, who teaches at the University of York (UK) published a research paper on August 2, 2024 stating that Canada's (MAiD) euthanasia law enables healthcare serial killers (HSK).

It is not safe to give doctors, or others, the right in law to cause the death of others.

When a nation legalizes euthanasia, it gives medical professionals, who were already killing their patients, the legal right to proceed.

Euthanasia becomes the perfect cover-up for medical murder.

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.

Persons who assist a suicide can have an agenda

This article was published on the Choice is an Illusion website on November 18, 2017

Tammy Sawyer

By Margaret Dore, Esq., MBA

Persons assisting a suicide can have an agenda. Consider Tammy Sawyer, trustee for Thomas Middleton in Oregon. Two days after his death by assisted suicide, she sold his home and deposited the proceeds into bank accounts for her own benefit. [1]

In other US states, reported motives for assisting suicide include: the “thrill” of getting other people to kill themselves; a desire for sympathy and attention; and “wanting to see someone die.” [2]

Medical professionals too can have an agenda, for example, to hide malpractice. There is also the occasional doctor who just likes to kill people, for example, Michael Swango, now incarcerated. [3]

Footnotes

[1] KTVZ.com, “Sawyer Arraigned on State Fraud Charges,” 07/14/11.
[2] Associated Press for Minnesota, “Former nurse helped instruct man on how to commit suicide, court rules,” The Guardian, 12/28/15 (“he told police he did it ‘for the thrill of the chase’”); “Woman in texting suicide wanted sympathy, attention, prosecutor says,” CBS News, June 6, 2017; and Ben Winslow, “Teen accused of helping friend commit suicide could face trial for murder,” (Deputy Utah County Attorney argued that the defendant “wanted to see someone die”).
[3] CBSNEWS.COM STAFF, “Life in Jail for Poison Doctor, July 12, 2000; Bill Vourvoulias, Blind Eye: How the Medical Establishment Let a Doctor Get Away With Murder and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Swango

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.

Why DC assisted suicide Act 21-577 Must Be Rejected.

This article was published by Choice is an Illusion - Washington DC on Jan 30, 2017

The bill to reject Act 21-577 is H.J. Res 27.

Sign the petition urging Congress to support H.J. Res 27 to overturn the fatally flawed DC assisted suicide Act.

By Margaret Dore, Esq., MBA[1]

• Prevent Non-voluntary Assisted Suicide
• Prevent Non-voluntary Euthanasia
• Prevent Legal Elder Abuse
• Prevent Suicide Contagion, Including for Young People
• Prevent People With Years or Decades to Live, From Throwing Away Their Lives
• Preserve Government Transparency and Integrity
• Don’t Let the District of Columbia Become Corrupt Like Oregon
• Prevent National and International Security Implications 

Source Material:

This fact sheet is based on a “Suicide Contagion Memo” and a “General Memo,” prepared by Margaret Dore, which can be viewed at the links cited in the footnotes below.[2][3]

1. Overview

Act 21-577 (the “Act”) is a deceptively written law that legalizes assisted suicide and euthanasia as those terms are traditionally defined.

2. Definitions

Suicide means the intentional taking of one’s own life.

Assisted suicide means that someone provides the means and/or information for another person to commit suicide.

When a physician provides the means or information, the practice may be termed physician-assisted suicide. This term, however, can be a misnomer in the context of the Act, which allows non-health care personnel such as the patient’s family members to actively participate in the lethal drug request process and administration of the lethal drug.

Euthanasia is the direct administration of a lethal dose to cause another person’s death.

3. Suicide Contagion

The Act is based on a similar law in Oregon, enacted in late 1997. By 2000, Oregon’s conventional suicide rate was “increasing significantly” and has continued to rise over time.This is consistent with a suicide contagion in which the legalization of physician-assisted suicide has encouraged other suicides. See Suicide Contagion Memo.

4. The Cost of Suicide

A recent Oregon government report states: “The cost of suicide is enormous. In 2012[2} alone, self-inflicted injury hospitalization charges in Oregon exceeded $54 million; and the estimate of total lifetime cost of suicide in Oregon was over $677 million.” Id.

Note that Oregon is a smaller population state.
* The Rest of this Fact Sheet is Based on Margaret Dore’s General Memo

5. The Act Applies to People With Years or Decades to Live

The Act applies to persons with a “terminal disease” with a prognosis of less than six months to live.

In real life, such persons can have years or decades to live due to misdiagnosis and because predicting life expectancy is not an exact science. Dr. Kenneth Stevens of Oregon says “There are always some people who beat the odds.’

In Oregon, which has a nearly identical six months to live criteria, this determination is made without treatment. Consider, for example, Oregonian Jeanette Hall who was given a terminal diagnosis of six months to a year to live. This was based on her not being treated for cancer. She decided to use Oregon’s law, but her doctor (Kenneth Stevens) stalled her and eventually convinced her to be treated instead. In a 2016 declaration, Jeanette Hall states: “This July, it will be 16 years since my diagnosis. If [my doctor] had believed in assisted suicide, I would be dead.”

In Oregon, annual statistical reports list chronic conditions such as diabetes mellitus (diabetes) as underlying conditions sufficient to justify assisted suicide.

6. The Act Is a Recipe for Elder Abuse

Elder abuse is a significant problem in the District of Columbia and throughout the United States. Victims may even be murdered. The D.C. Department of Human Services states: “Typically, the abuser is a relative, frequently an adult child of the victim.”

The Act allows a patient’s adult child, who will financially benefit from the patient’s death, to actively participate in the lethal drug request process. In the context of an executing a will, similar conduct is used to prove coercion and undue influence.

Once the lethal dose is issued by the pharmacy, there is no oversight. No witness, not even a doctor is required to be present at the death. Even if the patient struggled, who would know?

7. The Act Creates the “Perfect Crime”

The Act requires the death certificate to list a medical condition as the cause of death, which prevents prosecution for murder as a matter of law. The Act also requires that use of the lethal drug not be disclosed on the death certificate, creating a legal cover up.

8. In Oregon, Even Law Enforcement Cannot Access Information Collected by the State

The Act contains language similar to Oregon’s law, which in Oregon is interpreted to bar even law enforcement from accessing information about deaths under Oregon’s law.

9. The DC Act Has Stronger Language, Which Can be Read to Bar Access to Information Under “Any Law.”

The Act will insulate the Department of Health from review by not only law enforcement, but arguably the courts and political authority.

10. Purported Mandatory Oversight by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner is a Sham.

The Act provides for mandatory review of every death under the Act by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. There is, however, no mechanism for the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner to know when “every death” occurs. The purported mandatory oversight is a sham.

11. Malpractice and Medical Predators

The Act gives the attending physician near complete control over the death process, including explicit authorization to sign the death certificate. See the Act, § 6 (g). Doctors will be able to use the Act to hide malpractice. The door will also be opened to give cover to medical predators, such as a Dr. Michael Swango, who just like to kill people.

12. A National and International Security Implication

The Act applies to a person who “resides” in the District of Columbia, which includes members of Congress and the Senate, and certainly the President of the United States. Foreign government nationals such as ambassadors also reside in the District of Columbia. With this circumstance, political motivations, both here and abroad, could come into play with the prospect of a perfect crime in which even law enforcement is blocked from obtaining information. The Act has national and international security implications. For this reason alone, the Act must be rejected.

13. Physician-Assisted Suicide Can Be Traumatic for Patients and Families

In 2012, a European research study addressed trauma suffered by persons who witnessed legal physician-assisted suicide in Switzerland. The study found that one out of five family members or friends present at an assisted suicide was traumatized. These people, “experienced full or subthreshold PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) related to the loss of a close person through assisted suicide.” I have seen this in my cases, plus trauma for the patients as well.

14. Pain Is Not the Issue

I am not aware of any case in which a person has used Oregon’s law for uncontrolled physical pain; the Oregon statistics do not make this claim (they talk about "concerns" of "inadequate pain control or concern about it"). (Emphasis added).

Footnotes:
[1] Margaret Dore, Esq., MBA is a lawyer in Washington State where assisted suicide and euthanasia are legal. She is also president of Choice is an Illusion, a nonprofit corporation opposed to assisted suicide and euthanasia. While in DC, she can be reached at 206-697-1217 and margaretdore@margaretdore.com See also www.margaretdore.com, www.choiceillusion.org and http://www.choiceillusiondc.org
[2] The Suicide Contagion memo can be viewed at this link:
http://www.choiceillusiondc.org/2017/01/in-oregon-other-suicides-have-increased_21.html
[3] The General memo can be viewed at this link:
http://www.choiceillusiondc.org/2017/01/memorandum-to-members-of-congress-and_75.html
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Swango

EPC demands in-depth investigation into murders at care homes in Canada.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Elizabeth Wettlauffer arrested.

Southwestern Ontario is shocked by the revelation of allegations that a nurse was responsible for 8 deaths in care homes in Woodstock and London Ontario.

As shocking as it is that Elizabeth Wettlaufer, 49, of Woodstock; has been charged with 8 counts of first degree murder in what is being defined as possibly the worst case of a seriel killer in Canadian history, we need to demand that an in-depth investigation be done into every care home in Canada, especially now that euthanasia and assisted suicide are now legal.

We should mourn the deaths of James Silcox (84), Maurice (Moe) Granat (84), Helen Matheson (95), Gladys Millard (87), Mary Zurawinski (96), Helen Young (90). Maureen Pickering (79) of Woodstock Ontario and Arpad Horvath (75) who was a resident at Meadow Park nursing home in London, but we must also recognize that these are a group of many deaths caused by people who falsely consider themselves angels of mercy in our medical system.

As Executive Director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, I have received calls from people who are convinced that their loved may have been prematurely killed in a hospital or nursing home. These cases are very frustrating because it is nearly impossible to prove that such an act has occurred and the financial and personal costs associated with gaining justice is prohibitive.

Consider Joy Wawrzyniak who has been fighting for more than 6 years to gain some justice in the death of her father, Douglas DuGuerre. What about the case of Annie Farlow who died under suspicious circumstances at 80 days of age? Should we shrug off Annie's death because she was born with significant disabilities?

Cases of doctors or a nurse intentionally causing the death of a patient are not uncommon.

Several cases have been reported in the media in the past such as the death of David Gray, in which the doctor received a nine month suspended sentence for negligence causing death.

Several medical professionals who killed their patients, include: Dr. Harold Shipman, Charles Cullen, Dr Virginia Soares de Souza, Aino Nykopp-Koski and Dr. Michael Swango.

A recent NEJM study on the practice of euthanasia in the Flanders region of Belgium found that 1.7% of all deaths (more than 1000 deaths) were hastened without explicit request in 2013. As stated in the Euthanasia Deception documentary.

The Lancet study analyzing the Netherlands euthanasia experience found that there were 310 hastened deaths without explicit consent in 2010 in the Netherlands. 

The Euthanasia Deception documentary shared the story of Hendrik Reitsma who was robbed of 3 years of life with his Granddad in the Netherlands.

It is not safe to give doctors, or others, the right in law to cause death of their patients.

When a nation legalizes euthanasia, it gives medical professionals, who were already willing to kill their patients the legal right to proceed.

Unless every Canadian Province does an in-depth research study into the deaths at care institutions, we will never know how many intentional killings occur yearly in our country.

California assisted suicide Bill ABX2-15 - Vote NO.

Margaret Dore, a Washington State lawyer, published this article opposing California assisted suicide bill ABX2-15 after she attended a recent committee hearing. Her response was published on the California Against Assisted Suicide website on September 9, 2015. 

Margaret Dore

1. New Mexico no longer allows physician-assisted suicide.

2. Under ABX2-15, requiring the patient to meet alone with the doctor as a protection against undue influence, is not necessarily a safeguard. See § 443.5(a)(4). Consider, for example, if the doctor, himself or herself, has an interest in seeing the patient gone. For example, if the doctor botched the patient’s case and wants to eliminate the liability by eliminating the patient.

3. ABX2-15 protects patients by providing that doctors may be sanctioned by their licensing board or agency. See § 443.16(c). Doctors, however, are notoriously bad at policing themselves. For an extreme example, there is the case of Michael Swango MD, who thrill-killed his patients. When hospital administrators became aware of a potential problem, they simply let him go, leaving him free to get another job and start killing again. (Information Link)

4. Under ABX2-15, a bad doctor like Swango would be additionally aided by "blanket immunity." See Committee Staff Analysis for the Assembly Committee on Public Health and Developmental Services, p. 17 (“the bill provides blanket immunity for health care providers ... even in instances where their actions are grossly negligent”).

5. There is already a problem with hospice and palliative care programs over-reaching and killing non-dying patients. See e.g., Peter Whoriskey, “As More Hospices Enroll Patients who Aren't Dying, Questions About Lethal Doses Arise,” Washington Post, August 21, 2014, (Link to the article). See also The Kaiser Papers, regarding California cases (Link to the article) If you can’t control the abuse now, why would you give doctors even more power to take away patient choice?

6. Dogs who are euthanized do not get to choose; people are already having the same problem with euthanasia not actually legal. Please vote “No” on ABX2-15.

Margaret Dore, Esq., MBA
Law Offices of Margaret K. Dore, P.S.
Choice Illusion, a non-profit corporation
www.margaretdore.com
www.choiceillusion.org

British nurse sentenced to life for killing two patients and poisoning 20 more.

Alex Schadenberg

By Alex Schadenberg

Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

A British nurse was sentenced to life in prison (35 years before parole) for killing 2 people and poisoning 20 others.

Victorino Chua, a nurse from Stepping Hill Hospital in Stockport UK, was convicted on Tuesday of killing Tracey Arden (44) and Derek Weaver (83) and poisoning 20 more people by intentionally putting lethal amounts of insulin into Saline bags to poison patients. Grant Misell, who was one of the 20 poisoned patients who survived was brain damaged from the insulin poisoning.

Investigators also learned that Chua was not a qualified nurse.

Tracey Arden, Derek Weaver and Grant Misell

According to the Daily Telegraph Justice Oppenshaw stated in sentencing Chau that:

"It is a striking, sinister and truly wicked feature of the case, he did not personally administer contaminated products directly to most of these patients but having left saline bags contaminated with insulin he did not know which nurse would unwittingly collect them and still less to which patient the nurse would then unwittingly administer the poison. 

"It is as if he left it to fate to decide who would be the victim."

The euthanasia lobby claims that legalizing euthanasia or assisted suicide decreases the number of deaths without request by physicians. The facts do not back up their claim.

Cases where a doctor or a nurse intentionally cause the death of a patient is not uncommon.

A recent NEJM study on the practice of euthanasia in the Flanders region of Belgium found that 1.7% of all deaths (more than 1000 deaths) were hastened without explicit request in 2013.

The Lancet study analyzing the Netherlands euthanasia experience found that there were 310 hastened deaths without explicit consent in 2010 in the Netherlands.

Several cases have been reported in the media in the past such as the death of David Gray, in which the doctor received a nine month suspended sentence for negligence causing death.

Several medical professionals have intentionally killed patients, such as: Dr. Harold Shipman, Charles Cullen, Dr Virginia Soares de Souza, Aino Nykopp-Koski and Dr. Michael Swango.

It is not safe to give doctors, or others, the right in law to cause death of their patients.

Harold Shipman: Euthanasia without request or consent?

By Alex Schadenberg

International Chair - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Harold Shipman was responsible
for at least 218 deaths.

The Associated Press reports that a recent two-part documentary marking ten years since the death of serial killer, Dr Harold Shipman, refers to his actions as euthanasia.

In 2000 Shipman was given 15 life sentences for murder, “although many more were suspected,” as the Press Association so cautiously phrases it. (According to The BBC, “police believe he may have actually killed up to 215 patients.”)

The documentary examines some of the deaths attributed to Dr Shipman and interviews some of the family members of his victims. The Associated Press article reports:

Jack Shelmerdine, whose father - also called Jack - died at the hands of the GP, said he and his family had a greater suspicion that there was a problem with hospital care than their doctor being at fault. 

The son of one of serial killer Harold Shipman's victims still maintains he was a "good doctor" and said he views the killing as "euthanasia". 

He had been present when Shipman delivered the lethal injection. Mr Shelmerdine recalled: " I was concerned that my father was still unconscious, still asleep as we were thinking, and I rang Dr Shipman and I remember his words were, 'Oh, he might well make it'. But those words, 'he might make it' seemed odd to me. 

"And I just wondered whether questions ought to be asked. I wasn't thinking in terms of Dr Shipman having done anything. We were more inclined to think that the hospital had done something wrong rather than Shipman.

Michael Swango was responsible
for approximately 60 deaths.

The problem with euthanasia without request is that some family members support euthanasia and often the family members are unaware of what is actually happening or comments from a family member are misconstrued resulting in death. This explains why statistics from Belgium indicate that up to 32% of all assisted deaths are done without request.

Reporting on part one of the documentary the article states:

In the first programme, Harold Shipman: Driven To Kill, a former colleague from his early years practising medicine at Pontefract General Infirmary, the then ward sister Margaret Sivorn, said he was a "brilliant doctor". 

"The consultants liked him. He got on well with his colleagues. The patients absolutely couldn't ever say a bad thing about him," she said. 

"They felt calm and comfortable with him and knew that he was looking after them properly. He was always professional, always, and you always felt at ease with him. He'd have a smile with them, a little joke with them, but professional to his fingertips."

Medical Serial Killer, nurse, Charles Cullen: 'I thought I was helping'

The Daily mail published the following article concerning Charles Cullen, a nurse who was also a medical serial killer in the United States. This article was published on April 29 under the title: 'Angel of Death' nurse who murdered at least 40 patients to become one of America's worst serial killers speaks from prison for the first time to chillingly claim: 'I thought I was helping.'

Cullen is not alone, as a medical serial killer. 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 location. Aino Nykopp-Koski is a nurse who was convicted of killing 5 patients in Finland. On March 28, 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 patients 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.

Why do medical killers go undetected for so long? 

When I read the Pulitzer Prize winning book by James B. Stewart's, Blind Eye - The Terrifying Story of a Doctor Who Got Away With Murder it was clear that the medical community has a hard time believing that one of their own could do such acts. They also fear lawsuits and they fear that they will also be accused of being complicit in the acts by not effectively protecting their patients.

How can society even consider legalizing euthanasia or assisted suicide and thereby giving medical professionals, the right in law to cause the death or being involved with causing the death of their patients. This would provide cover for murder, which may or may not be done with the consent of the patient?

Considering this information and considering the fact that the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition regularly receives phone calls or emails from people claiming that similar crimes have happened to their loved ones or friends, and considering the information in the recently released book: After the Error: Speaking out about patient safety to save lives. How could anyone who cares about the safety of vulnerable people support the legalization of euthanasia or assisted suicide?

Further to that one must also consider that recent statistics showing that, where euthanasia is legal that: Euthanasia is out of control in the Netherlands, and the number of Euthanasia deaths increased by 25% in Belgium in 2012.

Consider the three recent studies from the Flanders region of Belgium that found:

1. 32% of all euthanasia deaths were done without explicit request.

2. 47% of all euthanasia deaths were not reported as euthanasia.

3. Nurses are euthanizing their patients, even though the Belgium law limits the act of euthanasia to doctors. 

It is simply not safe for society to legalize euthanasia or assisted suicide.

---------

Daily Mail Report, April 29, 2013. Link to the article.

* Charles Cullen is known as the most prolific serial killer in American history

* It is believed he could have killed up to 400 patients by injecting them with lethal medication. 

* Went undetected for 16 years.

* Finally caught in 2003 and given six life sentences in 2006.

Charles Cullen

A nurse who admitted killing at least 40 patients in his care but is suspected of murdering hundreds apologized for the deaths in his first ever interview from jail but still claimed they were mercy killings.

Charles Cullen was handed down six life sentences in 2006 after he admitted poisoning at least 40 people in New Jersey and Pennsylvania over the course of his 16-year nursing career.

Considered one of the most prolific serial killers in American history and once dubbed 'the angel of death', Cullen said he wanted to end his patients' suffering, even though many of them were in good health.

The serial killer was interviewed for the first time ever about the murders by CBS' 60 Minutes, which was aired last night.

When asked if he considered himself a murderer, he said: 'I think that I had a lot of trouble accepting that word for a long time. I accept that that's what it is.'

When asked if he got pleasure out of killing people, Cullen told 60 Minutes: 

'No, I thought that people weren't suffering anymore. So, in a sense, I thought I was helping.'

When it was pointed out that many of his patients weren't in pain, he said: 

'You know, again, you know, I mean, my goal here isn't to justify. 

'You know what I did there is no justification. I just think that the only thing I can say is that I felt overwhelmed at the time.'

In the interview broadcast on CBS' 60 Minutes, Cullen admits that if he had not been stopped, he probably would have went on to kill more people.

At the time of his arrest in December 2003, Cullen told authorities he had administered overdoses to patients to spare them from going into cardiac or respiratory arrest.

Even though there were suspicions at several of the hospitals he worked at, these were never reported or marked on his record and Cullen was able to continue his killing spree at each place he was transferred to.

When Cullen was hired at Saint Luke's University Hospital in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, he had already been fired or forced to resign from five other hospitals. 

Yet none of this was in his file with the state nursing board. 

He admits to killing five people at St Lukes and even though there were suspicions, the hospital asked him to resign on the premise they would give him neutral references.

He was then hired as a critical care nurse at New Jersey's Somerset Medical Center, where he administered lethal injections to 13 patients over 13 months.

It was only when a Roman Catholic priest named Florian Gall died unexpectedly overnight while recovering from pneumonia, that the hospital discovered high levels of the heart drug digoxin in his blood.

It was the second unexplained overdose in two weeks and set in motion the events leading up to Cullen's arrest.

Asked why he thought he was able to go undetected for so long, he said: 

'I think because it's a matter of worrying about lawsuits.  

If they pointed out that there was a problem they were going to be found liable for millions of dollars. They just saw it as a lot easier to not put themselves in a position of getting sued.'

He also revealed that when he was at Somerset, he was allowed to work one more shift even though he was being fired over the suspicious deaths.

'The weird thing about Somerset Hospital was is that they were planning on firing me the night before. So they let me work one more shift knowing that they were going to fire me the next day,' he told 60 Minutes. 

'So they let me work an additional shift with the suspicion that I had harmed patients. Which I, you know, was kind of a bizarre thing to do.'

Link to the 60 minutes interview: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57580822/angel-of-death-killer-nurse-stopped-but-not-soon-enough/

Link to the 60 minutes interview promo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=735FNjM39zk