Nurses in court: Nine murder cases in the nursing home shake Aachen!
Nurses in court: Nine murder cases in the nursing home shake Aachen!
A 44-year-old carer currently stands before the Aachen district court, where he is accused of having killed nine patients on a palliative care unit in Würselen between December 2023 and May 2024. The public prosecutor has charged a total of 26 cases in which he is said to have given strong calming and pain relievers, which ended in nine cases. In 34 other cases, murder attempts are assumed, reports Ärzteblatt .
The accused did not comment at the beginning of the process. The public prosecutor describes him as someone who has raised himself to the “Lord of Life and Death” to minimize the workload during his night shifts. Most of the victims are terminally ill and elderly patients. The nursing officer is said to have administered the medication Midazolam and morphine both sleeping and awakening patients in order to obtain control of their pain and sedation.
The importance of midazolam in palliative care
midazolam is a frequently used benzodiazepine in palliative care and is one of the four essential drugs for the care of terminally ill patients. It acts on the benzodiazepine receptor, reinforces the effect of gamma amino acid (GABA) and has sedative, anxiolytic and anticonvulsant properties. The use of midazolam in palliative care is valued by its rapid effectiveness and flexibility in the dosing. According to pmc it shows an effect within minutes with intravenous and subcutaneous admission. As a rule, Midazolam is used to treat fear, delirium and palliative sedation.
The individual dosage of Midazolam is particularly important, especially in older patients in whom the clearance of the drug can be reduced. The public prosecutor assumes that despite professional experience and competence since his training as a health and nursing staff in 2007, the defendant lacked empathy in nursing-intensive patients.
ethical questions in palliative medicine
The case also raises basic ethical questions that are regularly discussed in palliative medicine. Topics such as patient autonomy, therapy boundary and the role of medical assistance to euthanasia are the focus. The working group ethics in palliative medicine deals with these topics and has 95 members who come from different professions with different moral beliefs. This group is actively in ethics committees and also discusses special decision -making situations such as medically assisted suicide or killing on request. Further information can be found on the website of the DetailsQuellen