• An Italian nurse was arrested over suspicion of murdering 13 elderly patients
• The suspect, dubbed by police as ‘the hospital ward killer,’ administered large doses of anticoagulant in her patients’ bloodstream
• The large doses of blood-thinning drug, used to prevent blood clotting, triggered irreversible internal bleeding
An Italian nurse was arrested on suspicion of murdering 13 elderly patients who underwent surgery in intensive care unit where she worked for over twenty years.
Investigators told members of media during a news conference that the patients suffered severe hemorrhaging during the procedure. It was determined that each of the victims had a level of anticoagulant in their bloodstreams 10 times the normal dose.
Police claimed that none of the patients were terminally ill during the time of surgeries, but died after the suspect, Fausta Bonino, administered fatal doses of a blood-thinning drug into their intravenous drips.
A Toronto Sun article published on March 31, 2016 said that nurse Bonino administered large doses of the drug Heparin, a drug used to prevent blood clotting, even in certain cases where physicians treating the patients did not prescribe it.
The result, according to investigators, was to rapidly trigger multiple and irreversible internal bleeds which killed the alleged victims. Twelve of the victims died of internal bleeding and one of cardiac arrest.
The 55-year-old nurse, dubbed by police as “the hospital ward killer,” killed her victims, whose ages range between 60 and 88, from January 2015 to mid-2015.
The suspicious deaths of the elderly patients triggered an investigation. Bonino was transferred to another department while the probe was being done.
After the investigation, Carabinieri police commander Gennero Riccardi said the suspect was identified as the only hospital staff working when all of the thirteen suspicious deaths happened.
“We do not know of a specific motive, but the suspect suffers from depression. She had been receiving psychological treatment for many years,” Riccardi said.
Bonino was arrested on Wednesday, March 30, when she returned from a holiday with her husband. She is now detained pending charges. Julian Robinson wrote in his article for the Daily Mail Online dated March 31, 2016 that prosecutors want the suspect to be charged with multiple homicide with the aggravating factor of cruelty.
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