Uruguay: Police Arrest Two Nurses Over ‘Mercy Killings’
By Ria Novosti
Police in Uruguay have arrested two male nurses suspected of killing at least 16 elderly patients in two hospitals in the capital, Montevideo, La Segunda daily said.
According to investigation that started in January on a tip from a hospital worker, the two nurses, aged 38 and 49, knew one another but acted independently. They claimed that they had killed their victims “out of pity to end their suffering.”
Authorities have also charged a female nurse as being an accomplice in at least one of the murders.
The suspects, dubbed ‘Angels of Death’ by local media, killed their victims by giving them lethal injections of air or morphine.
Uruguay police said the suspects may have been involved in as many as 50 “mercy” killings.
La Segunda cited Judge Rolando Vomero, who is in charge of the investigation, as saying the victims had been suffering serious illnesses prior to their deaths, but were not terminally ill.
The case sparked a wave of criticism of the health care system in the small Latin American nation of 3.4 million people, drawing calls for the resignation of Health Minister Jorge Venegas.
