ZCZC
BFF-10
GERMANY-TRIAL-HOSPITAL
Mounting suspicion, missed chances: German killer nurse case
OLDENBURG, Germany, Oct 30, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – German nurse Niels Hoegel, already serving a prison sentence over the deaths of six patients in his care, goes on trial from Tuesday for allegedly killing 100 people.
Here is what you need to know about this extraordinary criminal case.
– The accused –
Born December 30, 1976, in the North Sea coastal town of Wilhelmshaven, Hoegel became a nurse, like his father, at the age of 19.
In 1999 he took a job at the main hospital in Oldenburg and transferred to a facility in neighbouring Delmenhorst in 2003.
Former colleagues described him as diligent and likeable but began to take notice of a “troubling” number of deaths in the intensive care unit on his watch.
Between 2000 and 2005, he allegedly injected an overdose of medication in dozens of ailing, often aged patients with the aim of rescuing them from the brink of death.
He was rarely successful and in 2005 was caught in the act.
Psychiatrists who have evaluated Hoegel, the father of an adolescent daughter, say he has a severe narcissistic disorder.
– The victims –
Hoegel has admitted to killing around 30 of his patients and will face trial over 100 deaths.
But investigators say the actual toll of his deadly game with human life could top 200, though the true number may never be known because several presumed victims’ bodies were cremated before they could be autopsied.
Hoegel brought on a premature death for his ailing patients to show off his “talents” to his increasingly suspicious colleagues, and out of “boredom”, he has testified.
“I cannot imagine that he remembers each of the people (he killed),” said Petra Klein, who runs the crime victims’ support group Weisser Ring in Oldenburg.
“It’s all so treacherous.”
– Hospitals’ culpability? –
The hospital in Oldenburg dismissed Hoegel in late 2002 due to mounting suspicions about the deaths of patients on his watch.
However it failed to open an investigation, and even offered Hoegel a glowing professional recommendation, perhaps to ensure his quick departure.
“Without the mistakes of some people in Oldenburg… this series of murders by Niels Hoegel could have been stopped,” said Christian Marbach, whose grandfather was one of the victims in Delmenhorst.
Colleagues and superiors at the two clinics will be asked to testify in the latest trial, as will Hoegel himself.
Marbach is hopeful he will “reveal everything” from the dock.
– Damning figures –
A police file based on statistics provided by the Delmenhorst hospital shows that between 2003 and 2004 the death rate was twice as high as in previous years.
During the same period, the use of medication for cardiac ailments soared.
And in most cases when a patient died, Niels Hoegel was on duty.
The figures paint a damning picture but prosecutors only took action in 2008, ordering the exhumation of eight bodies under pressure from relatives of alleged victims.
BSS/AFP/AU/08:50 hrs