17/09/2021
Doctor free up beds, by Killing Patients.
"Unfortunately, our mission is to be go-betweens on the springboard to the next life, so I want to clear the intensive care unit. It's making me itch", said Doctor de Souza.
A female Brazilian charged with killing seven patients to free up beds at a at intensive care unit may have been responsible for as many as 300 deaths at The Universitario Evangelico which is the biggest hospital in the state. It receives half of all people injured in accidents in the area.
Dr. Virginia Soares de Souza and her medical team administered muscle relaxing to patients, and then reduced their oxygen supply, causing them to die of asphyxia at the Evangelical Hospital in the southern city of Curitiba.
De Souza, a 56-year-old widow, was arrested in 2013 and charged with seven counts of aggravated first degree murder.
Three other doctors, three and a physiotherapist who worked under De Souza have also been charged with murder.
Prosecutors for the state of Parana said wiretaps of De Souza's phone conversations revealed that her motive was to free up hospital beds for other patients.
"I want to clear the intensive care unit. It's making me itch," she said in one recording released to Brazilian media. "Unfortunately, our mission is to be go-betweens on the springboard to the next life," she added in the same phone call.
More cases are expected to emerge as investigators comb through 1,700 records of patients who died in the last seven years at the hospital, where De Souza headed the intensive care unit. "We already have more than 20 cases established, and there are nearly 300 more that we are looking into.
If prosecutors prove that De Souza killed 300 patients, this could be one of the worst serial killings in the “World serial killer competition for Doctor & Nurses” rivaling the notorious case of Harold Shipman, the English doctor who was found to have killed at least 215 patients.
A muscle relaxant such as Pancuronium (trademark Pavulon) was administered; increasing the patients' dependence on artificial respiration; then the oxygen supply was reduced, causing death by asphyxia. Some of the patients were conscious moments before they died.
In some cases, De Souza was absent from the hospital and gave instructions to end the life of a patient by telephone to members of her medical team, according to documents detailing the charges.
But sadly Brazil's slow legal system is taking years to try an allegedly murderous doctor. Meanwhile, De Souza and the other arrestees remain on bail until the initial seven test-charges of aggravated first-degree murder reach court, which may still be months away. De Souza has pleaded not guilty to charges.
The state prosecutor in Curitiba warned last year (2014) that the case could take up to five years to resolve and said it was unprecedented in Brazil.
In Brazil, private hospitals treat a high percentage of low-income patients through the public service, the Unified Health System (SUS). But the overlap between private and public hospitals is said to hurt those who can't afford private healthcare plans.
"Because there are too few public hospitals to treat low-income people, private hospitals, which prioritize maximizing profit, tend to choose what SUS patients they will take in based on how much the government will remunerate them for their services, not based on how critical or urgent their medical condition is," José Sestelo, a professor of collective health at the Bahia State Federal University, told The Lancet last year. The Evangelical Hospital attends mostly to the needy.