Nurse suspected in Covid deaths files complaint against psychiatrists who reported him
Theodoor V., the former nurse suspected of involvement in approximately 20 deaths at the Wilhelmina Hospital in Assen, has filed a disciplinary complaint against employees of GGZ Drenthe and a psychologist from Outpatient Forensic Psychiatry Noord. According to the complaint, they violated professional confidentiality and “failed to observe the required due care and maintain records,” the man’s lawyers told ANP on Monday.
V. was arrested in April 2023 after the hospital filed a report with the authorities. The Public Prosecution Service (OM) suspected the Veenhuizen man of involvement in the deaths of around 20 patients in the Wilhelmina Hospital’s lung department during the height of the pandemic between March 2020 and May 2022. The OM dropped the case against V. in April 2024 due to insufficient evidence. V. had spent six weeks in custody.
Prosecutors had based their accusations on a letter claiming the nurse told several colleagues “that he had prematurely ended the lives of about 20 patients who he thought were terminal and seriously suffering.” It was suggested that the nurse did this by shutting down ventilators or bypassing doctors and making the decision to administer higher doses of morphine without approval.
According to V.’s lawyers, the suspicions against their client were solely based on information provided by the healthcare providers involved. If they had maintained their professional confidentiality, the man would never have been arrested. V. denies making the statements on which the OM based its suspicions on.
Earlier this year, loved ones of coronavirus patients who died in the Wilhelmina Hospital in Assen filed an Article 12 procedure, asking the court to force the OM to prosecute V.
