In the Court of Manchester, United Kingdom, they have called it “poisonerBut she denies the accusations.
Nurse Lucy Letby has been accused of causing the deaths of five boys and two girls, as well as attempting to murder 10 other babies at the Countess of Chester hospital.
Prosecutor Nick Johnson singled out Letby as a person with a “constant malevolent presence” in the hospital’s neonatal unit.
The 32-year-old rejects all 22 charges brought before Manchester Crown Court.
Jurors heard that the nurse allegedly tried to kill one baby three times, while another died as a result of air injection.
the accusations
The parents of the infant victims in the case were among those in court when Johnson opened the indictment. He said the Chester city institution was a “busy general hospital like so many others in the UK”.
However, he continued, “unlike many other hospitals, inside the neonatal unit of the Countess Hospital of Chester a poisoner was working“.
Before January 2015, infant mortality statistics in the clinic’s neonatal unit were comparable to other similar units, he said.
“However, for the next 18 months or so, there was a significant increase in the number of babies dying and the number of severe catastrophic collapses“.
Johnson said the increase was noted by specialists at the hospital, who were concerned that “the babies who were dying had unexpectedly deteriorated.”
Doctors also noted that babies who collapsed “didn’t respond to adequate and timely resuscitation” and others “faded dramatically, but then just as quickly recovered.”
“Having searched for a cause, which they could not find, the specialists noted that the collapses and unexplained deaths had a common denominator.“, said.
And that was “the presence of one of the neonatal nurses and that nurse was Lucy Letby.”
The investigation
The prosecutor explained in court how the doctors could not resolve the reason for the declines and deaths, so they called the police and carried out a “thorough check.”
“That research suggests that in the period between mid-2015 and mid-2016, someone in the neonatal unit poisoned two children with insulin.“, said.
“The prosecution says that the only reasonable conclusion that can be drawn from the evidence being exposed is that someone deliberately poisoned these babies with insulin.”
The babies, according to the prosecutor, were twins (although not twins) and were poisoned within days of being born.
Johnson said his blood sugar levels fell to dangerous levels.
But the children, identified only as child F and child L, survived thanks to the skill of medical staff who tested for low blood sugar levels.
“What the medical staff didn’t realize is that in both cases, it was the result of someone poisoning them with insulin.“, he added.
The prosecutor stated that no one would think that someone would be trying to kill babies in a neonatal unit.
“There is a very restricted number of people who could have been the poisoner, because entry to a neonatal unit is very restricted,” he said.
Lucy Letby was ‘on duty’ when both babies were poisoned. “We charged that she was the poisoner,” Johnson said.
Both twins had a brother, boy E and boy M, who were also allegedly attacked by Letby, one of whom did not survive.
The court heard that one of the means by which child E died and child M was affected was an injection of air into the bloodstream, what doctors call an air embolism.
The room also said that all deaths and collapses “were not accidents” and were not “natural tragedies.”
The prosecutor went on to say that sometimes babies were injected with air and at other times fed insulin or too much milk, evidence shows.
“The constant presence when they were fatally attacked or catastrophically collapsed was Lucy Letby“.
Several attempts
Jurors viewed a chart showing the nurses who were on duty when the alleged criminal incidents occurred.
Pointing to the first three alleged crimes as examples, the prosecutor said the table showed that the only person who was present on all three occasions was the accused.
“If you look at the table overall, the picture is, we say, blatantly obvious. It’s a process of elimination. A lot of the events in this case happened on night shifts. When Lucy Letby moved to day shifts, the meltdowns and the deaths were transferred to the day shifts,” he said.
Johnson stated that, in some cases, Letby tried to kill the same baby more than once. “In one case she even made it to the third time,” she said.
The court also reported on the studies of Letby, who graduated in nursing from the University of Chester a few years before the events.
In addition, he worked throughout the period in the neonatal unit and lived in Chester at the time.
The trial could last up to six months and the defense will have to present its arguments.
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BBC-NEWS-SRC: https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-internacional-63208937, IMPORTING DATE: 2022-10-10 19:50:05
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