Poisoning trial: defence claims patient tried to frame nurse after suicide attempt

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The defence of the Helsinki nurse who is currently on trial in the Helsinki District Court, accused of five murders and six attempted murders, claimed on Wednesday that the defendant had not caused any poisonings and had not tried to kill anybody.
      “None of the five have died of poisoning. The poisoning may have weakened their overall state of health, and they have later died of some disease”, said defence lawyer Heikki Lampela in court on Wednesday.
     
On Wednesday the court heard arguments in the case of one of the alleged murder attempts.
      The prosecution maintains that the defendant tried to poison an 80-year-old woman in her home by feeding her yoghurt into which she had placed a drug that affects the central nervous system.
      When the patient’s condition weakened, the nurse called an ambulance. She told the dispatcher that she had found the woman lying on the floor.
      The elderly woman later said in hospital that she suspected that the nurse had poisoned her. The police were contacted and the defendant was detained soon thereafter.
     
The 80-year-old woman died in the late summer for other reasons. The woman’s daughter testified in court on Wednesday, saying that her mother felt that the nurse was overcharging.
      In the week before the poisoning, the woman had given the nurse a letter to a friend, asking her to mail it. The letter expressed mistrust with the nurse, saying that the fees that she was charging were outrageous. The letter never reached its destination.
      The daughter also said that her mother had been very meticulous about her medicines and their dosages. Administering medicines was not one of the nurse’s tasks.
     
The defendant denied in court that she would have raised her fee with no reason.
      She also claimed that the overdose of medication was actually a suicide attempt, and when it failed, the 80-year-old claimed that the nurse had poisoned her out of embarrassment.
      “Old people are ashamed of things like that. The accusation was her reaction and her defence”, the defendant said.
      She said that the woman had been depressed for a longer period of time. The daughter said that she had seen no signs of deep depression, or self-destructive behaviour.
     
The defendant insisted that she had not tried to kill the woman, and that she would have had no motive for such a crime.
      The defence also stipulated that if the court finds that the nurse actually did administer a drug to the woman, the crime in question would be an aggravated assault, and not attempted murder.
      Lampela asked her client what she would think of a situation in which a nurse would have tried to poison a patient.
      “Terribly immoral. It is not part of our profession. I would not approve of it under any circumstances”, the nurse said.
      The trial continues on Thursday.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Prosecutor: Theft motive for poisoning patients (27.1.2010)
  Trial of nurse accused of multiple murders begins (13.1.10)
  Case of nurse suspected of poisoning reveals problems in information sharing among officials (22.5.2009)
  Police exhume body at cemetery in murder investigation (20.5.2009)

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