A palliative care nurse in Germany has been sentenced to life in prison after he was convicted of the murder of 10 patients and the attempted murder of 27 others.
Prosecutors alleged that the man, who has not been publicly named, injected his mostly elderly patients with painkillers or sedatives in an effort to ease his workload during shifts overnight.
Now with him in prison his coworkers have an even bigger workload. If I ever end up old and in pain, please feed me too much pain killers. You know what? I don’t need to be old. Just give me the damn pills.
Creepy.
Agreed, what a sicko.
There really isn’t enough context in this article to make comment. Were the doses provided at the prescribed dose and time? Did the patients analgesia match reported pain scales and clinical pattern for pathology? Was there difference in PRN use for his shift and others? Presumably all information that would have been pulled apart in the trial
Where I live (Philly suburb) there was an incident where a guy driving a 12,000 gallon gasoline truck pumped out 4000 gallons at his first gas station stop and then decided he just wanted to go home rather than making the rest of his deliveries. So he ran the hose to the back of the station and dumped the other 8000 gallons onto the ground. This happened to be right above a creek and about 200 feet from an elementary school.
It just doesn’t make any sense how anybody could be this stupid. He got 20 years in prison for it or something like that. He certainly deserved it, but meanwhile executives who manage to create far worse disasters never see a day in jail.
When I’m in palliative care, go ahead and murder me tbh.
I think you mean hospice care. Otherwise, if you get in a bad car accident tomorrow you are requesting your nurse to kill you even if you are expected to recover.
I have also worked adjacent to hospice care and you would be surprised that people do recover from hospice care as well.
Palliative care is care for the terminally ill. You’re not recovering from that, although actual longevity can vary widely from doctor’s estimates.
No, that is hospice care.
Palliative care can be provided at any stage of a serious illness alongside curative treatments to manage symptoms, while hospice care is a specific type of palliative care for patients with a life expectancy of six months or less who have stopped curative treatments and are focused on comfort.
Literally provided the definition from the NHS. So perhaps it is different in your country but even googling doesn’t align with your definition.
I read it. See below.
"Palliative care is defined by the World Health Organisation as an approach that improves the quality of life of patients (adults and children) and their families who are facing problems associated with life-limiting illness, usually progressive. It prevents and relieves suffering through the early identification, correct assessment and treatment of pain and other problems whether physical, psychosocial or spiritual.
In England, the term ‘end of life care’ refers to the last year of life."
So it is exactly what I said. Something something reading comprehension.
My cursory googling of definitions does not align with yours. Palliative seems to lean toward terminal illnesses, and your definition is largely only seen/used in the united states.
Fair enough, I worked adjacent with Hospice as a Care Coordinator for seniors. I am from Alaska so that is probably the difference. Cheers!
Palliative is essentially “we can’t do anything, we’ll make you comfortable”. It is NOT used for someone expecting to recover. I’m not why you think “hospice” nd “palliative” are mutually exclusive.
Not sure where you are getting this from. In the US and UK it does not mean you are dying, in fact you are still getting treatment. In the US this is termed as hospice care which is a part of palliative care when you are expected to die soon.
I looked it up in the UK and they call it end-of-life care which is also a form of palliative care.
I was a care coordinator for many years and I employed many personal care assistants that were trained by hospice nurses.
I received my fair share of employees calling balling their eyes out because their elder had passed away. I also have had the privilege of being there with several people who passed away.
I am from the Uk and it does mean you’re dying. I literally provided information from the National Health Service.
From NHS
"Palliative care is defined by the World Health Organisation as an approach that improves the quality of life of patients (adults and children) and their families who are facing problems associated with life-limiting illness, usually progressive. It prevents and relieves suffering through the early identification, correct assessment and treatment of pain and other problems whether physical, psychosocial or spiritual.
In England, the term ‘end of life care’ refers to the last year of life."
That’s is not what is says.
The article does not mention the evidence basis, so I will keep my comment general. In the Netherlands similar accusations were made against Lucia de Berk, the evidence was based on opinions of superiors and colleagues plus the statistical unlikelihood of so many patients dying under her supervision. But crucially there was never any direct evidence that she deliberately killed patients, and in the end it turned out that she didn’t. She was particularly unliked by her colleagues because she was a sex worker in the past and that is why she was given the worst shifts (and coincidentally the shifts where more patients die). In the end her life was ruined by her colleagues and the judiciary system not understanding statistics (5 percent of all nurses have a statistically-significant high death rate). Again this case could be a real psychopath but the fact that they don’t mention the evidence basis makes me think of Lucia de Berk.
the judiciary system not understanding statistics (5 percent of all nurses have a statistically-significant high death rate)
There was a study years ago in Norway where they wanted to see if there were correlations between any disease and living underneath high-voltage power lines. They found that 5% of all diseases were so correlated … when using an alpha of .05.
There’s a former nurse here in the UK called Lucy Letby who’s currently in prison for murdering several babies and attempting to kill more. There’s a campaign to get her released based on basically 3 strands.
The first is the fact that there’s no actual evidence that any of the deaths were not of natural causes. The second is the statistical argument. The third is that the police enlisted the help of people who worked with Letby to assess the evidence. As one person put it “how can any fair investigation be even partially carried out by people who the police should actually be treating as potential suspects?”
I have no ideas whether or not she’s guilty, but since i had previously heard of cases like the one you describe I’m definitely of the opinion that there should be a retrial.
the judiciary system not understanding statistics (5 percent of all nurses have a statistically-significant high death rate).
And for those in this thread who also don’t understand statistics, that’s because the threshold for statistical significance is usually 5% by definition and has nothing to do with nursing at all.
This could also not be a serial killer thing at all, and moreso be that the nurse was drugging patients to put them out. Which is still terrible, but not the same thing as intending to kill people even if some people died by malpractice of drugging them.
I would think if a nurse really wanted to be a serial killer and was a sole on-duty nurse there are probably slicker ways to have done so than using painkillers and sedatives that would turn up on an autopsy. Not to mention painkillers and sedatives arent really a surefire way to intentionally kill anybody, even if they can. But giving them in doses that are sure to stop someones breathing would also make them show up upon investigation quite clearly.
Sounds like this person was not a serial killer and was just drugging people to knock them out, which isnt necessarily intentionally lethal even if it can also kill. Realistically, as a palliative care nurse (even with him drugging people) some of them probably died more generally whether he happened to have drugged them or not. When dealing with people already dying I imagine it would be harder to concretely say he killed them without having massively overdosed them
Either way though, its certainly malpractice and people certainly died. So the verdict seems fair. He knew he was rolling the dice with their lives even if not trying to kill them
Like dude… JUST GET A DIFFERENT JOB. If that was actually why he started doing it. Of course, big if lol. Bro probably was just getting a power trip doing it. Sick freak
This guy seems to be a serial killer with a long history. Don’t know why they’re highlighting that he did it all to “reduce work load”.
More broadly, there’s a hell of a lot of compassion fatigue in caring professions. Time is tight. There’s understaffing everywhere. If an elderly person is complaining of pain or discomfort, the solution might be to spend some time with them and reposition them or get to the cause of the problem. I wouldn’t be surprised if staff are rushed and take the quick and easy way out to just give medication instead…which might accidentally have unintended side effects in an elderly person. But this case was nothing of the sort. This guy is just going around killing people.
hospital admin probably is trying to cut corners by hiring less nurses,doctors, and putting pressure on the remaining staff. this is pretty much pervasive in the us too. allows them to deflect neglect accusations onto the nurses.
More broadly, there’s a hell of a lot of compassion fatigue in caring professions.
It could be a warped sense of excess compassion, too. Some of these caregiver serial killers are “angel of death” types who think they’re doing euthenasia.
(Not saying that’s the case here, since OP’s blurb gives a different motive and I can’t be bothered to read further, but more broadly it seems to be a well-known thing.)
It’s totally infuriating how that goes. Every few years some serial killer is exposed working in hospitals or care homes. Sobody really cares. This news about a serial killer killing 10 is not even headline news. Others have killed over 80 people and nobody really cares, nobody is trying to improve the situation so that people like them can’t kill. But if some migrant harms someone with a knife, everybody totally freaks out.
The media doesn’t care. People do, but the media hasn’t been for the benefit of the people for quite a while now.
That’s one way to get your break
Wasn’t this an episode of Dexter?
It was also the revenge plot for season 2 of Scream Queens. Lazy pos hospital actively killed a dude that should have lived and said he up and abonded his family so they go back to the party.
In the Dexter episode the nurse just hated and killed people with unhealthy lifestyles and causing extra workload for medical staff
Yeah actually it sounds just the same, life imitates art
There’s also The Good Nurse and Jessie Buckley’s character from Fargo season 4
That’s so unbelievably fucked up.
May he rot in a cell for the rest of his days.
Sounds like their plan kinda worked.
It’s Germany, not Louisiana. The logic checks out. They won’t have to work ever again.
They won’t have to work ever again.
It’s still possible. Even with the particular severity of guilt, life sentences are usually commuted to probation after 16 to 20 years, which would still give him 7 to 3 years until retirement age.
Honestly if I was 3-7 years from retirement and I had a choice between a somewhat comfortable prison or going to some shit job because no one will hire me as a felon…
Really depends what their priorities are at that point. Who is left in their life who still cares about them, knowing they were murdering people left and right.
I’m guessing they’ll get out after 16 years and find some way to not work, if they get out.
Air traffic controllers, you guys hang on okay!? You guys just hang on. Let’s be rational.
If it’s the same as other country, patient dying in your work is the busiest part of the day. The paperwork, phone calls and wrapping the body. Most nurses pray for patients to die after they clock out due to paperwork alone.
