Brazilian Doctor May Have Killed 300 Patients

[webfact]

Brazilian doctor may have killed 300 patients
Anne Barrowclough

CURITIBA: -- A Brazilian doctor who has been charged with killing seven patients to free up beds in a hospital intensive care unit may have been responsible for up to 300 deaths, according to investigators.

Virginia Soares de Souza and her medical team allegedly administered muscle relaxing drugs to patients, then reduced their oxygen supply, causing them to die of asphyxia at the Evangelical Hospital in the southern city of Curitiba

Dr de Souza, the 56-year-old director of the ICU unit, was arrested last month and charged with seven counts of aggravated first degree murder. Three other doctors, three nurses and a physiotherapist who worked under her have also been charged with murder.

But investigators who are combing through the medical records of 1,700 patients who died at the hospital over the last seven years when Dr de Souza headed the intensive care unit said the numbers could be much greater.

Full story: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/americas/article3725050.ece

-- THE TIMES 2013-03-29

[krisb]

Christ, the whole ICU ward charged with murder! Even the physio person. Hard to believe and just bizzare.

[Dancealot]

I think this goes too far.

It feels like charging a doctor with murder after the patient died during surgery.

[retell]

omg

note to self do not end up in brazil hospital

[bendejo]

May have something to do with the evangelical element -- god is waiting for you!

[joboss]

May have something to do with the evangelical element -- god is waiting for you!

God is waiting, and so is a patient that needs the bed that could save their life. If u r a veg, why not go to meet St Peter.

[irwinfc]

May have something to do with the evangelical element -- god is waiting for you!

God is waiting, and so is a patient that needs the bed that could save their life. If u r a veg, why not go to meet St Peter.

not for any mortal to decide. it's easy to say when you're not the lying on the bed or a relative of someone who is.

[pacovl46]

I think this goes too far.

It feels like charging a doctor with murder after the patient died during surgery.

Are you delusional??? Maybe you should read that article again and then think about it for a second before you post!

[Dancealot]

I think this goes too far.

It feels like charging a doctor with murder after the patient died during surgery.

Are you delusional??? Maybe you should read that article again and then think about it for a second before you post!

I read it, but i do not believe a complete staff conspired to kill patients in order to free beds. I dont believe this news article.

Remember the o=auth doctors make?

I wouldnt call your opinion delusional but definitely short-sighted.

[harrry]

I think this goes too far.

It feels like charging a doctor with murder after the patient died during surgery.

Are you delusional??? Maybe you should read that article again and then think about it for a second before you post!

I read it, but i do not believe a complete staff conspired to kill patients in order to free beds. I dont believe this news article.

Remember the o=auth doctors make?

I wouldnt call your opinion delusional but definitely short-sighted.

I suggest you think again. They are thinking of what they think is the greatest good. Limited bed long stay low outcome patients. I know it happens.

http://bmb.oxfordjournals.org/content/52/2/289.full.pdf

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199605233342106

http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/articles/macleans/doctor-averts-euthanasia-trial

Edited March 29, 2013 by harrry

[Dancealot]

That is sickening, harrry.

You sound more credible to me.

[DRONGOH]

Looks like a former pattaya bar girl.

[Greer]

I think this goes too far.

It feels like charging a doctor with murder after the patient died during surgery.

Not at all - a doctor administering muscle relaxants and then reducing oxygen supply in the full knowledge of the most likely outcome - death. If they had not been given the muscle relaxant and had their oxygen supply reduced, they would have lived. That is an act of murder - and of the worst kind, being by a trusted health care professional charged with the safety and recovery of a human being.

[Greer]

Mind you - the continuing emerging story from the NHS in the UK is not just disgraceful, it borders on murder as well. The nurses and doctors who continued to allow the total lack of care in NHS Hospitals are as much to blame as this person - and please note - it is basically for the same reason - limited budget and lack of bed space.

Do we really believe we can trust our health care professionals nowadays? I wonder.

[britgent]

I heard she was not be messed with and was quite handy in a fight.

Apparently she has a lethal jab.

[zxray]

But they only killed the sick ones!

[bigbamboo]

I thought most doctors believed they were God...... not the Devil.

[harrry]

Once you enter icu you are on a numbers game. Your treatment will depend on the probability that that treatment will return you to a (in their opinion) meaningful life outside. There are a very limited number of ICU beds available and a large numbre of people who may benifit from them. The doctors may and often do consider further treatment will not result in this and getting you out of the bed may allow someone else in.

THe idea of stoping treatment is one thing. IN my view leaving you in a state where respiration has been stopped by drugs and then withdrawing oxygen is not in my view just stopping further treatment it is playing God. If treatment must be stopped I believe the person should be weaned off all drugs that are restricting him from surviving...Ie he should be able to breath on his own if he can do so. If death then resuls it is normal. If he has not been given the chance it is in my opinion murder or very close to it. It is like taking a person to the edge of a cliff blindfolding him and then letting him walk over the edge and then saying that it happened because he fell of the cliff..

Edited March 29, 2013 by harrry

[slapout]

It takes a special type of person to deal with ICU and its patients. Most indivuals who chose this profession are dedicated to saving lives. Its the management of institutions who should be watching and monitoring those who are in life giving/takeing positions.

300+ assisted deaths/murders should have stuck out in the mortality rate when compared with other hospitals and someone should have been looking way before 7 years had passed.

Human inhumanity to others seems to reach new levels as we attain higher levels to benifit mankind.

[harrry]

It is the secrecy that I feel is one of the worst aspects. It may be that it is needed but the secrecy means no one knows the criteria and as it "doesn't exist" it cannot be questioned or monitered,

[Steely Dan]

I think this goes too far.

It feels like charging a doctor with murder after the patient died during surgery.

Are you delusional??? Maybe you should read that article again and then think about it for a second before you post!

I read it, but i do not believe a complete staff conspired to kill patients in order to free beds. I dont believe this news article.

Remember the o=auth doctors make?

I wouldnt call your opinion delusional but definitely short-sighted.

Perhaps they worked in accounts.

[schondie]

Well, looks like someone's beaten Harold Shipman's score.

[pacovl46]

I think this goes too far.

It feels like charging a doctor with murder after the patient died during surgery.

Are you delusional??? Maybe you should read that article again and then think about it for a second before you post!

I read it, but i do not believe a complete staff conspired to kill patients in order to free beds. I dont believe this news article.

Remember the o=auth doctors make?

I wouldnt call your opinion delusional but definitely short-sighted.

Just because you don't believe it doesn't mean it's not true. ICU beds are extremely limited considering the total numbers of beds in any given hospital. What's the point of keeping someone alive with machines who will never ever recover from his/her injuries when there's people who actually have a chance of profiting from ICU treatment? I think there's a lot of nurses, doctors etc. who think that way. So, it doesn't surprise me that this happened as sad as it is.

[vijer]

Wow, 1,700 deaths in a 7 year period, in the USA the average was 31 deaths per hospital in 2012. The Evangelical Hospital was averaging 243 deaths a year! Not a god place to go if you're sick/injured.