Mosca who was head of the A&E department at Montichiari Hospital at the time |
A doctor in
Italy has been arrested after claims he killed two coronavirus patients to
‘free up beds’ at the height of the pandemic.
Carlo Mosca,
47, has been accused of giving Natale Bassi, 61, and Angelo Paletti, 80, lethal
doses of anaesthetics at Montichiari Hospital near Brescia.
The incident
allegedly took place in March last year, when Italy hit the headlines for
shocking pictures which showed Covid-19 patients lining hospital corridors.
Police are also investigating another three deaths after reports Mosca altered
the medical records of patients who died – and he has now been put under house
arrest at his home in Mantua.
He denies
the charges against him, calling the allegations ‘baseless’. Legal documents relating
to the arrest have been released outlining the prosecution’s allegations
against him.
They claim
messages revealed nurses suspected Mosca of killing patients to make space in
the A&E department he headed up.
Prosecutors
say Mosca administered Succinylcholine and Propofol, which were typically used
on the ward to anaesthetise Covid patients so they can have tubes inserted.
But it is
thought the patients given the drugs never had tubes inserted – so they believe
the use of anaesthesia was unnecessary. The hospital saw a 70% increase in
orders of these drugs between November 2019 and April 2020 – but only five
patients were given tubes during that period.
Montichiari Hospital |
An anonymous
complaint was made at the end of April, and legal documents contain WhatsApp
messages which suggest Mosca tried to get nurses to cover his tracks. The
nurses said in messages to each other: ‘Did he ask you to administer the drugs
without intubating them?’, ‘I’m not killing patients just because he wants to
free up the beds,’ and, ‘This is crazy.’
Prosecutors add when he found out he was under investigation Mosca
asked nurses to ‘agree on a convenient version of the story’ while ‘instigating
them to declare falsehoods’. Lawyers also allege he asked colleagues to leave
the room when he administered the drugs. ‘This has never happened to me
before,’ one nurse said. Natale, a diabetic who suffered from heart disease,
died on March 20 and Angelo died two days later.
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