Image credit: The Japan News
A midwife in Japan has been arrested on suspicion of murdering a 75-year-old hospital patient by contaminating his intravenous drip with human feces, police said Thursday.Miyuki Furukawa, a nurse at Kashiwa Tanaka Hospital in Chiba Prefecture, was arrested on July 15 and has been sent to prosecutors. She has denied the allegations, telling police: “I did not mix feces into the tube.”However, investigators revealed that her phone history included searches such as: “Feces injection, will they die?”The victim died on the night of January 31st. An autopsy confirmed the cause of death was multiple organ failure due to sepsis from numerous bacteria entering his bloodstream via the contaminated IV.Security cameras captured Furukawa entering and exiting the victim’s room multiple times during a night shift from January 29th to January 30th. Although the victim was not in her direct care, she explained to a colleague: “I stopped by because I was worried about the man’s condition.”At around 4 am, an associate nurse found the patient pale with shallow breathing and complaining of pain. The previous day, he had been alert.The head nurse discovered the IV drip had turned brown and photographed the tube before removing it. Moments later, the head nurse noticed the cup containing the contaminated line was missing. When asked, Furukawa said she had moved it to the staff station, but the cup later found there contained fluid of a reddish-orange colour, different from the brown substance originally observed.The patient’s condition worsened and his blood pressure dropped by the evening of January 30th. He died the following night.The hospital deemed it an “unusual death” and reported it to police on February 1st. Police analysis later determined the substance was highly likely human feces.When the hospital informed Furukawa of the police investigation about three weeks after the death, she reportedly responded: “Is that so? I guess I can’t come back anymore.” She voluntarily resigned, effective February 24th.The hospital operator said in a statement: “As an employee of a medical institution, and as a human being, this is an absolutely unforgivable act, and our hospital strongly condemns it. We are also deeply regretful that such a situation occurred despite maintaining a standard medical care system.”
