Genk (The Brussels Morning Newspaper): Maria Blanco died in 2014 from a pethidine overdose and a coin in her throat. A nurse was found guilty of intentional overdose facing potential life imprisonment.Â
Maria Blanco who was a cancer patient passed away in 2014 under suspicious circumstances at Ziekenhuis Oost-Limburg (ZOL). Even though she had terminal cancer an autopsy revealed that her death was not due to the disease. The forensic physician found an overdose of the pain medication pethidine in her blood along with a coin lodged deep in her windpipe. The nurse from Genk was accused of the overdose but she claimed innocence stating she was following orders and though she was doing the right thing. Her lawyer argued for her acquittal pointing to the coin as a potential cause of death. The mystery of how the coin got into her throat remains unsolved.
What led the judge to convict the Genk Nurse in Maria Blanco’s case?
The judge in Tongeren said that the woman from Genk is guilty of causing Maria Blanco’s death by giving her too much medication on purpose. The judge mentioned the woman’s own words from nine years ago where she admitted to adding extra medicine to ease Maria’s pain not to harm her. The court is sure that the nurse deliberately gave Maria a deadly dose of pethidine without a doctor’s order. This caused Maria’s sudden decline on the day she died. Before that Maria was alert and responsive showing no signs of imminent death.
The judge is sure that the nurse didn’t give the extra pain medicine through the first drip because the amount found in the patient’s blood was too high for that. The judge believes the nurse injected the pain medicine directly into the bloodstream later. The court doesn’t think the coin caused the death. They say the coin was placed in the throat as a cultural ritual after the woman was already unconscious from the overdose. The judge mentioned that Blanco breathed in the coin because she was in a coma not because she swallowed or coughed it out. The court won’t decide who put the coin there. But the judge in Tongeren said the nurse planned to poison the patient. The judge stated that this was not an accident it was a deliberate and intentional act. Even though the nurse may not have wanted the patient to die she took the risk which led to the patient’s death. The judge changed the charges to poisoning which is treated like murder in the law. The case will now go to the court of assizes where the nurse could face life imprisonment. The woman from Genk cried when she heard her sentence and her lawyer plans to appeal. This case is far from being over after ten years of legal proceedings.
