Hospitals are places that are meant to make you feel safe or at least guarantee you the luxury of the thought. However, a nurse in Germany has been arrested on suspicion of poisoning five premature babies with morphine, police said, adding that the infants had survived.
The woman was taken into custody on Wednesday after investigators found a syringe containing breast milk and traces of morphine in her locker at Ulm University Hospital in southern Germany. The situation became suspicious when the babies all developed respiratory issues almost around the same time which lead to investigations, AFP reported.
The babies are safe at the moment and under care and protection to ease their journey to health and there are no doubts of their full recovery or damage from the morphine in the long run. The nurse is said to have been found in the position of a syringe with a ‘milk-like’ substance inside it and upon testing was confirmed to be morphine.
Evaluations on the nurse are underway to determine if she is of sound mind psychologically.
‘The young nurse is said to face five accounts of manslaughter and grievous bodily harm if charged,’ said, Ulm prosecutor Christof Lehr told reporters.