Doctor and nurse turn killers in Italian hospital
by Michael Cook
| 9 Dec 2016 |
Doctors and nurses are the most trusted professionals,
according to a UK poll earlier this year, just ahead of hairdressers
and teachers, but absolutely thrashing politicians, real estate agents
and journalists. This may account for the confidence with which
supporters of euthanasia and assisted suicide entrust them with the
lives of the elderly and terminally ill.
However, this week’s news from Italy
is a reminder that not all medicos are worthy of that trust. An
anaesthetist and his nurse lover have been arrested near Milan over the
deaths of at least five patients and possibly dozens more between 2011
and 2014. The deaths took place at Saronno Hospital, about 30 km
north-west of Milan.
Leonardo Cazzaniga, 60, and nurse Laura Taroni, 40, are also
suspected of having killed his father and her husband and her mother. It
appears that they tricked Ms Taroni’s spouse into believing that he had
diabetes and then poisoned him with some hospital drugs.
Police wiretapped the couple’s phones and presented excerpts from
disturbing conversations. At one stage Taroni told Cazzaniga she could
kill her son and her eight-year-old daughter. "Every now and again I
have this urge to kill someone - I need to," Taroni allegedly told
Cazzaniga. According to one of Cazzaniga's colleagues, he frequently
referred to himself as an "angel of death". It appears that he also used
cocaine.
Also relevant to potential euthanasia laws, it appears that
colleagues and hospital administrators may have turned a blind eye to
the deaths. One doctor allegedly blackmailed the hospital into hiring
her in exchange for keeping quiet about the murders. She may have also
helped Ms Taroni falsify her husband’s tests for diabetes.
The police are not treating the deaths as euthanasia, or mercy killing, but as homicides.
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CEBID - Centro de Estudos em Biodireito
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