Monday, March 19, 2012

‘My mother was going to be released from hospital,’ daughter of Uruguayan nurse’s victim says

Relatives of victims of poisoning at two Uruguayan hospitals are coming forward to say some patients killed by Uruguayan nurses with an injection of morphine and air were not terminally ill.

Gladys Rodríguez, daughter of one of the victims affirmed in a radio interview her mother has going to be released from hospital soon contradicting the nurses’ defense which states the deaths were “mercy killings.”

“She was doing fine. I was hours away of picking her up at the Maciel Hospital,” she said refuting the nurses’ versions.

Murder charges were filed against two male nurses and a female nurse for covering up the deaths at two Uruguayan hospitals, judicial officials said.

Judge Rolando Vomero, in charge of the case, said after a court hearing that the accused admitted to causing a total of 16 deaths of patients. He also said most of the apparent victims "were not terminally ill."

Rodríguez gave the press a chilling account of her mother’s death. “I am appalled. My mother had diabetes and was taken to the hospital for a convulsion. But she was fine and about to come home when all of the sudden she had a seizure and died,” Rodríguez told reporters.