(supersedes previous)(ANSA) - Livorno, March 31 -
Carabinieri police on Thursday arrested a female nurse on
charges of killing 13 patients at a hospital in the Tuscan town
of Piombino, near Livorno, in 2014 and 2015.
Fausta Bonino, 55, now faces charges of multiple homicide
aggravated by cruelty, violation of duty during public service
and taking advantage of patient vulnerability in connection with
the deaths after it emerged she used lethal injections of
Heparin.
The anticoagulant allegedly caused rapid and irreversible
hemorrhages in her victims, who were in the intensive care unit
with a range of illnesses that included broken bones.
The victims were men and women aged between 61 and 88 and
none of them were terminally ill, police said.
Subsequent analysis revealed concentrations of Heparin of
up to 10 times the normal level.
Bonino is married with two children and had worked at the
anaesthesia and intensive care unit at Piombino hospital for 20
years before being moved to a different department in October
2015.
The mortality rate at the unit fell from 20% to 12%
following her transfer, police said.
She was arrested at Pisa airport while returning from
holiday with her husband and taken to prison in Pisa.
She suffers from depression and has received specialized
treatment, police said.
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