Soares, a director of Evangelica Hospital of Curitiba, is accused of cutting the oxygen ot people on life-support systems and pumping them full of lethal doses of muscle-relaxing drugs. She was arrested in February along with three doctors and a nurse, who are suspected of conspiracy. An additional three hospital staff have also been charged. Soares has denied the chargers.
The ministry of health has anaylyzed 1700 hospital records in the past seven years. According to Mario Labato, the head of the ministry’s investigation team,
“[The patients] all have the same modus operandi, the same relationship between the drug and the death, and the timing.” He said some of the alleged victims were awake and talking shortly before their deaths.
No motive has yet been assigned to Soares, and her lawyer, Elias Mattar Assad, says she is innocent:
“We will soon prove that everytying that happened in teh ICU was justified by medical procedure,” he said.
If all the suspected cases are confirmed, Soares could beat the record of Harold Shipman, the British doctor who was convicted in 2005 for killing 15 patients, and was reportedly responsible for up to 260 deaths.
