Six-year sentences in insulin death case

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Seinäjoki District Court sentenced two night supervisors, Satu Aksila and Pirkko Muukonen, to prison sentences of six years each in a case involving the poisoning death of a mentally disabled woman under their care at the Lehtimäki Institute in South Ostrobothnia last year.
      The sentence, which was handed down on Friday, was for aggravated assault and aggravated wrongful death.
      In Friday’s ruling, the court ordered the two to pay nearly EUR 65,000 in damages for the patient’s death.
      Both were ordered to remain in custody. The women have been in jail since their arrest in August last year.
     
In July last year, Muukonen asked Aksila to come to her unit, and to bring a sedative drug with her.
      The two forced the restless resident on her back. Muukonen held her down as Aksila injected her, using an insulin pen that she had brought with her.
      After that they turned her over. At seven in the morning, nurses who came to work found the woman dead in her bed.
     
The court acquitted the defendants on manslaughter charges, finding that they did not deliberately try to kill the victim, hoping, instead that the insulin might calm her down.
      The court did find that their actions after administering the insulin showed an indifference to the possibility that the injection might be fatal.
      The accounts of the events given by the two defendants were largely consistent, and showed an ignorance of the effect that insulin could have on someone like the victim, who did not suffer from diabetes.
      During the investigation, after the defendants had been separated, their stories changed several times, with each of them denying having been the one to administer the injection.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Police investigating use of insulin in Lehtimäki death (7.9.2007)
  Police suspect homicide in insulin death of disabled person (6.9.2007)
  Backgrounds of people who wish to work in social and health fields to be checked (17.8.2007)

Helsingin Sanomat