Abstract
Healthcare professionals are the people that the society trust, feel safe with their lives, and seek in need times because their professional obligation is to enhance the well-being of patients through treating or curing their diseases, and thus, prevent their death caused by such conditions. However, it is surprising that serial killers are not always the scary people who drive a van and offer candy, but it now includes healthcare workers like nurses, doctors or physician. This new expression of healthcare killers has emerged in the healthcare setting with caregivers being arrested for killing more than two patients. These accused healthcare professionals have given various reasons for their awkward action of murdering patients ranging from attention craving, heavy workload, patients being difficult to work with, being possessed by surges that they cannot control, and an angel of death syndrome where they claim that they show mercy and do favor to patients by ending their lives to stop suffering. In their action, they use various methods to kill patients such as injection by a lethal drug, suffocation, equipment tampering, and poisoning. From the convictions of healthcare killers, the number of patients’ death attributed to them is shocking. The act of killing, especially from the people whom should be concerned with the wellbeing of individuals is abominable and the death numbers reported demand an action. Therefore, this paper concludes that healthcare setting should take action to prevent further occurrences of such acts. This article focuses on discussing healthcare killers regarding definition, characteristics of the killers, their reasons for killing and methods they use.
Healthcare Killers
Rourke and Ward (2017) define healthcare killers as any healthcare employee or worker (professional) who intentionally kills patients in the environment of care-giving for reasons which are not related to euthanasia, mercy, or physician-assisted suicide. In the U.S., many healthcare workers have been convicted of killing patients including Charles Cullen, who has been termed as the most prolific healthcare killer admitted of murdering 40 patients in Pennsylvania and New Jersey during his career in sixteen years (Fitzpatrick, 2017). Seah (2017) adds that because the nature of healthcare workers job is to preserve and support the lives of the sick, these make this kind of killers go undetected in many occasions. Globally, many doctors and nurses have been convicted of killing patients, raising the number of patients’ deaths resulting from these actions.
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Characteristics of Healthcare Killers
According to Western University assistant professor, Michael Arntfield, healthcare professionals who kill are rare statistically, but when they do, they tend to murder many people before they can be detected and stopped (Fitzpatrick, 2017). As such, researchers have been on the lookout to identify the characteristic that these healthcare killers possess to enhance their detection and conviction. According to Eleftheriou-Smith (2015), these characteristics include, first, these serial killers have been found to possess a mental instability history. As such, they have the tendency towards irregular behavior; such as medical school expulsion records, employment dismissal history, and even medical revocation licenses because many of the killers tend to be mentally unstable (Seah, 2017). This characteristic was confirmed by a study done Birmingham City University criminologists who examined sixteen convicted female and male nurses that murdered within a hospital setting. The study found that ten of them had depression or psychological instability history while others seemed to have a personality disorder (Seah, 2017).
Second, these perpetrators of healthcare killers have been found by researchers to have issues with developing personal relationships or have difficult or secretive behaviors. As such, they tend to do their jobs alone, in close contact with prospective victims who may be very young, very old or otherwise not able to defend themselves (Engber, 2017). Third, according to Yorker, Kizer, Lampe, Forrest, Lannan, and Russell, (2008), these individuals have the preference for night shift or shifts with less staff and the likelihood of frequently changing hospitals. Eleftheriou-Smith, (2015) adds that another “red flag” trait of healthcare killers is the possession of drugs and other killing tools in their locker or at home, while some have higher death instances history in their shift as supported by Seah (2017). Additionally, a new research, according to Rourke and Ward (2017) identified that these killers “hold a detailed morbid conversation with the grieving family,” which points out another trait they possess.
Various reasons have been attributed to contribute to this act of healthcare workers killing patients, both emerging from research while others from the offenders’ confession. Different studies have documented that most healthcare killers craved for attention including research by Birmingham City University criminologists (Seah, 2017); and a study by Beatrice Yorker of California State University (Fitzpatrick, 2017). In this case, Beatrice Yorker explained that those who crave for attention will carry out an act that is lethal, only to then try to save the life of the patient to get credit for such (Fitzpatrick, 2017). Besides, both Yorker and Arntfield adds that another reason is that hospital environment is ideal for the killers as they have legal access to the deadly drugs and other killing tools, have constant potential victims access, no witnesses are there, and the deaths may not be regarded suspicious given the patients are elderly and ill, thus, autopsies are unlikely (Fitzpatrick, 2017).
Additionally, according to Seah (2017), the combination of killing knowledge which doctors have as well as the ready access to the vulnerable (sick patients) offers another reason why caregivers kill patients. Moreover, the killers commit such crimes in a milieu of patients’ death is natural and evidence of crime may be destroyed quickly. Furthermore, even when the killers turn to be suspects, patient privacy rule can make investigations difficult (Engber, 2017). From the various cases of healthcare killers globally, the perpetrators have also confessed various reasons attached to their crime including being controlled by surges beyond their control, lack of patient empathy, doing patients a favor by ending their lives to avoid suffering, having heavy workloads and having patients who are difficult to deal with while others want to exert power which they don’t have by selecting victims who annoy them (Fitzpatrick, 2017). For instance, Wettlaufer, one of the serial healthcare killers in Canada, confessed that she was being visited by surges she could not control and at a particular moment, she supposed that either God or devil wanted her to kill these individuals (Engber, 2017). Other killers thought they were invulnerable due to the kind of job they do and as such, they thought that they could never be caught for such acts (Seah, 2017).
These killers used different methods to end their patients’ lives. These methods include poisoning with insulin and other drugs such as muscle relaxants, potassium, bleach, and opiates; injection by lethal drugs doses; suffocation; and interfering with equipment that assists patients with their conditions such as oxygen tubes (Yorker, Kizer, Lampe, Forrest, Lannan, & Russell, 2008). Research have identified poisoning to be the most common method of murder because of killing ease, the access to the drugs, and the probability for death cause to be concealed as some other medical illness (Seah, 2017).
Conclusion
From the above discussion, it is evident that healthcare killers are a true phenomenon which ends the lives of innocent individuals by those who should be concerned with enhancing their well-being. Killing, especially among healthcare professionals is an abominable act, and thus, action should be taken to prevent further occurrences of murder in the nursing home settings. The actions may include introducing preventive measures like watching closely the misbehaving healthcare professionals, holding caregivers for the type and amount of medicine they give through tracking devices, and reinforcing legal and moral obligations such as in-service training of ethics among other measures.
References
Eleftheriou-Smith , L. (2015, May 18). What makes a nurse a serial killer? The five characteristics that define our 'Angels of Death'. Independent . Retrieved July 30, 2018, from https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/what-makes-a-nurse-a-serial-killer-the-five-characteristics-that-define-our-angels-of-death-10258913.html
Engber, D. (2017). The Killer Nurse. Slate . Retrieved July 30, 2018, from http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/crime/2017/07/elizabeth_wettlaufer_canada_s_killer_nurse_and_the_archetype_of_the_health.html
Fitzpatrick, M. (2017, June 3). Health-care killers 'statistically rare' but difficult to spot. CBC News . Retrieved July 30, 2018, from https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/wettlaufer-health-care-killers-1.4143174
Rourke, S & Ward, T. (2017). Healthcare Serial Killers: Patterns and Policies. Medscape . Retrieved July 30, 2018, from https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/884136
Seah, R. (2017, August 27). Common traits of serial killers in healthcare—and policies to thwart them. Retrieved July 30, 2018, from https://today.mims.com/common-traits-of-serial-killers-in-healthcare-and-policies-to-thwart-them
Yorker, B. C., Kizer, K. W., Lampe, P., Forrest, A. R., Lannan, J. M., & Russell, D. A. (2008). Serial murder by healthcare professionals. Journal of healthcare protection management: publication of the International Association for Hospital Security , 24 (1), 63-77.
