Prosecutor loses bid to review mental healthcare file of nurse suspected of killing Covid patients

The Public Prosecution Service (OM) will not be granted access to the mental healthcare records of the former nurse from Wilhelmina Hospital in Assen (WZA) suspected of causing the premature deaths of 20 Covid patients. The Noord-Nederland court in Assen ruled that there is sufficient other information available and that such records should only be shared in truly exceptional situations.

The 31-year-old man worked as a pulmonary nurse at the WZA during the Covid-19 pandemic. According to the Public Prosecutor's Office, he repeatedly told professionals from the mental healthcare facility GGZ Drenthe in conversations that he had prematurely ended the lives of around twenty patients in the hospital. Without instructions from a doctor, the suspect allegedly performed medical procedures on patients who he believed were terminally ill and suffering severely. He was taken into custody on April 17.

The mental healthcare organization considered his statements grave enough that, after discussions among colleagues and after seeking both internal and external legal counsel, they chose to breach their confidentiality obligation and report it to the WZA. The police also interviewed these mental healthcare workers as witnesses, also breaking the confidentiality obligation, according to the court's findings. The prosecutor should, therefore, have sufficient information to investigate the alleged offenses further, the court pointed out.

The court stated that the mental healthcare records of the former nurse are not expected to contain any other new information that is so "crucially relevant" that it would need to be shared. The court deemed the possibility of this information providing a more detailed assessment of the statements made by the suspect to the police not significant enough to warrant its release.

A spokesperson for the Public Prosecution Service stated on Thursday that they believe the file is "really needed." She added that the court's decision does not make the investigation into the suspect any easier. Therefore, the Public Prosecution Office is considering whether to appeal this decision.

The suspect has been released since early June. The court in Assen decided that the suspicion against him was not strong enough to keep him in custody, as research has not yet led to "concrete cases" where the premature death of "one or more patients" can be linked to the suspect. The prosecutor's appeal against this decision was also unsuccessful. The Court of Appeal agreed with the court in Assen that the dossier "does not contain concrete situations where there seems to be a causal relationship between the actions described by the suspect and the patients' deaths."