In June 2005, a nurse and orderly at the Delmenhorst hospital caught a colleague in the act trying to kill a patient. The appropriate reaction would have been: Inform superiors, alert the police, check which deaths occurred during the colleague’s working hours. What happened: The superior was informed, but then happened – nothing. No call to the police, no warning to colleagues. The perpetrator was not even released, he was allowed to work two more shifts before his vacation. Then he killed another patient. Only then did those responsible inform the police.
Prosecutors call it manslaughter by omission. Seven doctors, nurses and supervisors from the Oldenburg and Delmenhorst hospitals now have to answer for not stopping the murderer, even after he had already been convicted: Niels Högel, who has already been sentenced to life imprisonment for 87 murders. But it is no longer about him, even if the narcissist will enjoy testifying against his former colleagues as a witness.
Even seasoned senior physicians preferred to pretend to be stupid
Now it’s about those who looked the other way. Anyone who has followed the past trials of the death nurse suspects what could come: denying, forgetting, silence. In 2015 and 2019, witnesses from the hospitals appeared in rows, stonewalled, the statements clearly denied, they suffered from collective memory loss. Even seasoned senior physicians would rather play dumb than admit a shred of responsibility.
Of course, such acts are initially unimaginable. Nobody trusts their own colleagues to serially murder patients. After all, you’re in the hospital, not in a thriller. But doesn’t one have to prick up your ears when there are rumors among colleagues about the “Reaper” Högel, when the consumption of a heart medication increases by 700 percent, when the death rate on the ward skyrockets? Where does doing nothing turn into intent? Because you don’t have to want the murders to be guilty. It is enough to accept them: in order not to risk trouble or damage the reputation of the clinic. Anyone who makes this the yardstick for their actions is putting the lives of patients at risk. This is called conditional intent and is punishable.
The judiciary has imposed psychological torture on many people
It’s not just the clinic staff who have hardly taken on any responsibility to this day. The public prosecutors, who dragged on the proceedings and left it to the victims’ relatives to fight for clarification, have not been charged. The series of murders in Oldenburg and Delmenhorst was not just a medical scandal, it was also a judicial scandal. It took years for the process to begin. Meanwhile, the perpetrator is holding court in detention, and until recently he was giving interviews unhindered.
The now accused would also have wished for quicker clarity. Certainly, anyone who is cynical will have been happy about the years of delay in the process, because it allowed their own career to continue undisturbed. For the others, the pressure that has been weighing on them for 17 years has certainly not gotten any easier. With its kidnapping tactics, the judiciary not only subjected the victims’ relatives, but also the accused to years of psychological torture. Nobody takes responsibility for that either.