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Mannheim Regional Court: Guilty verdict against senior citizen
Photo: imago stock&people
The Mannheim Regional Court has sentenced a 73-year-old woman to three years in prison for attempted manslaughter of a fellow patient. According to the court, the woman turned off the oxygen device of a 79-year-old woman last November, according to the verdict handed down on Thursday evening.
The reason is said to have been that she was disturbed by the alarm sound of the device. Both women were housed in a hospital room. The elderly patient was dependent on an oxygen device because of a severe corona disease. After they had taken off the face mask themselves several times and nurses had turned off the loud alarm sound, the 73-year-old turned off the oxygen device to avoid further disturbances.
Pointing out danger to life
The ward rounder noticed the device being switched off. The woman admitted to the doctors that she had turned it off in order to be able to sleep. In the opinion of the court, she was made aware of the danger to the life of her fellow patient.
Nevertheless, she turned off the oxygen device again that same evening. Although she noticed that this caused a significant breathing disorder in the fellow patient, she did not turn on the device or call the staff. When the device was noticed, the elderly woman was unresponsive and had to be transferred to the intensive care unit.
About two and a half weeks after this incident, she died due to a failure of several organs. According to the court, however, the shutdown of the oxygen device was not the cause. The prosecutor's office had charged the woman with attempted murder. However, she backed away from this accusation in the course of the trial.
bbr/AFP/dpa