A nurse is being investigated for allegedly killing a patient by injecting air into the midline, which is a venous catheter, using an empty syringe .
It happens in Modena, the suspect is a 49-year-old woman and the episode, which dates back to May 31, may not be the only one. According to the magistrates there would be other suspicious deaths given that the same nurse would have modified medical records and pharmacological therapies , not for the good of the interested parties it is suspected.
The charges against the nurse are serious: aggravated voluntary homicide with premeditation, aggravated material and ideological falsity committed by a public official in public documents, unauthorized practice of the medical profession . The Modena Public Prosecutor's Office has also issued an eight-month interdiction order against the woman.
This, according to the prosecution, is what happened on May 31. Health care personnel at a nursing home noticed the 49-year-old repeatedly “pumping” air into the midline connected to the right arm of a 62-year-old patient using an empty syringe . The victim suffers from ALS and is under deep sedation through palliative care. And according to investigators , the cause of her death was precisely that premeditated act carried out by the nurse . The complaint was filed by the facility itself and the nurse, questioned by the judge, availed herself of the right to remain silent.
The prosecutor's office is therefore coordinating the Carabinieri and the NAS of Parma towards a thorough investigation into all the activities carried out by the 49-year-old in the nursing homes where she previously worked (there would be more than one). And something emerges immediately, something serious, according to the penal code: the nurse allegedly altered medical records and drug prescriptions of the patients of the facility in question (different from the one where the murder allegedly took place). How would she have done it? She allegedly had access to the computer system through the doctor's credentials. Hence the third possible crime: the unauthorized practice of medicine . How did she come into possession of the doctor's credentials? Another aspect that the investigation will have to clarify. But above all, the judiciary, the Carabinieri and the NAS will have to clarify for what purpose the 49-year-old tampered with the medical records.
The suspicion is, however, that there are other deaths and the Modena prosecutor's office presents it in these terms, in the note released today: « Investigative investigations are underway in relation to the deaths of other patients that occurred in other health facilities in the province where the nurse had worked between 2020 and 2021 ».
(Online Union)