Nurse jailed for killing patients

A 55-year-old nurse was sentenced to life imprisonment today for murdering five of her patients at Germany's biggest university hospital in the capital Berlin.

Irene Becker had admitted deliberately killing four of the patients using a medication that lowers blood pressure but she had rejected blame for the other death.

She claimed acting "for the good of the patients" and her lawyers argued in court that the crime was merely manslaughter. Her victims were aged between 48 and 77.

Becker was exposed last year after two other staff suspected the patients had not died naturally.

Tens of thousands of German doctors have trained at the Charite Hospital in Berlin. In communist days it was one of the most prestigious clinics in the Soviet Bloc and was patronised by communist heads of state.

Prosecutor Thorsten Neudeck had told the court Becker played master over life and death in the incidents from late 2005 till last October when she was arrested.

Prosecutors had earlier alleged that she struck eight times, but one patient survived and it could not be proved that two deaths were caused by the drugs.

Medication to reduce blood pressure takes the strain off blood vessels and cause the heart to beat more slowly. Overdoses of such drugs can lead to the heart ceasing to beat altogether.

In November last year, a court handed a life term to male nurse Stephan Letter, 28, Germany's worst serial killer since World War II, for killing 28 of his patients at a hospital in Sonthofen in the south of Germany.
source:www.brisbanetimes.com.au