Brazilian Doctor Charged for Allegedly Killing Patients to Free up Hospital Beds

A Brazilian doctor, Virginia Soares de Souza, is being investigated by the Brazilian health authority on being charged with killing seven terminally-ill patients in order to free up hospital beds.

Soares, a 56-year-old widow, was arrested in February along with others suspected of conspiracy that involves three doctors and a nurse at the intensive care unit at the Evangelica Hospital of Curitiba.

She is charged for reducing the oxygen supply to the patients, allowing them to die of asphyxia and also administering lethal doses of a muscle-relaxing drug.

Initially, Soares was charged with killing seven patients, but the number soared to 20, with around 300 other suspicious deaths during an inquiry set by Brazil's Health Ministry.

"De Souza 'played God' by deciding which patients should die in order to free up beds in the ward. All of them have the same modus operando, the same relationship between the drug and death, and the same time between both," said Dr. Mario Lobato, lead investigator, on old Brazil's Fantastico TV program. 

Dr. Lobato will study the medical records of nearly 1,700 patients who died in the hospital in the last seven years.

If the number of killings by Soares is confirmed, she would overtake Dr. Harold Shipman, who was one of the most prolific serial killers ever recorded in history. He was charged with more than 20 murders. He killed people by administering a lethal overdose of diamorphine.

Meanwhile, Soares denies the accusations and her lawyer fights to prove her innocence, stating that the investigators have misunderstood how an ICU works. Last week she was released on bail, as the results of the investigation are yet to come.