It Happens All The Time: Nurse Accused of Murdering Numerous Elderly Patients

My aunt was killed this way.  Her “nurse” kept her just absolutely blasted on opioids until she’d burned through all my aunt’s savings, then my aunt miraculously died literally the day the money ran out.

In hospitals, I wouldn’t doubt if half of all elder deaths are deliberate.  We had another first hand experience of having to watch an elderly hospitalized person like a hawk in order to keep the medical staff from doing something horrible.  With one nurse in particular, the desire to “end their suffering” was palpable.  The individual in question was able to leave the hospital and died at home several months later, of natural causes.

Anyway, a nurse in Canada has been charged with at least 8 counts of murder for dosing patients to death, deliberately:

A nurse in Canada has been accused of preying on elderly patients at assisted living centers for nearly a decade — intentionally delivering fatal doses of drugs to them as she jumped from facility to facility, authorities said.

Elizabeth Wettlaufer, 49, was charged Tuesday with first-degree murder in the deaths of eight people, ranging between 75 and 96 years old.

Her victims included five women and three men — all of whom were patients at Caressant Care nursing homes in Ontario where Wettlaufer had worked.

“We are confident at this time that all of the victims have been identified,” Woodstock Police Chief William Renton said at a press conference.

Since Wettlaufer worked at several other long-term care facilities, officials said authorities haven’t ruled out the possibility of more victims.

The eight patients that have been identified so far were all administered a drug before their deaths, but officials have refused to say what kind.

“I’m not in a position at this time to comment of specifics of the drug,” said London Police Service Det. Sup. William Merrylees. [Because doing so might be politically inconvenient, say, because the drug is one commonly associated with murder by doctor euthanasia?]

………After it was revealed Tuesday that Wettlaufer had been disguising her hits as harmless deaths from disease or old age, many of the patients’ relatives came forward saying they had grown suspicious of their care — including Horvath’s daughter.

In my experience, people often have suspicions. And those suspicions are often well grounded.

But for how long will it be illegal to involuntarily kill- murder – an old or sick person in this country?  Even worse, how long will it be before sick people are forced to die by a corrupt government-corporate alliance that only cares about how much things cost, and not making people well?  California’s approval of euthanasia is already having an entirely predictable effect- insurers are refusing to cover chemotherapy while eagerly paying for self-administered suicide drugs:

At age 29, Packer was diagnosed with scleroderma, a chronic autoimmune disease that causes scar tissue to form in her lungs. A doctor told her she had three years to live. Now 33, she has outlived the death sentence.

But as her condition deteriorates, she’s finding little support for her fight to stay alive.

Since California’s End of Life Option Act took effect, attitudes expressed by sick members of support groups she’s run or been involved with have changed to the grim. Where once members exchanged messages of hope, “people constantly are talking about, ‘We should be doing this [dying].’ ”

“I just wanted no part of it,” says Packer, a devout Roman Catholic. [and mother of 4, aged 7-13.  Obviously pregnancy has been out for her for the past 4  years]

Then her doctors suggested that switching to another chemotherapy drug might buy her time. Her medical insurance company refused to pay. She says she asked if the company covered the cost of drugs to put her to death. She was told the answer is yes — with a co-payment of $1.20.

“My jaw dropped.”

Months later, after Packer threatened to tell her story to the media, the drug was approved.

Typical.

It took barely ten years in Holland, Belgium, and similar countries for “voluntary euthanasia” to advance to “involuntary euthanasia.” If you can get a doctor in Holland to decree a life worthless, that person’s life if forfeit, regardless of age or condition or personal desire.  Involuntary euthanasia is all the rage over there, with scores if not hundreds killed a year.

All we’ve ever done is run a few decades behind them. Open, legal murder of the elderly and sick will be here, soon enough, to the extent that a nurse like the one above may be impossible to prosecute.