Toronto hospital baby deaths

The Toronto hospital baby deaths, thought by some to be homicides, occurred in the Cardiac ward of the Hospital for Sick Children between July 1980 and March 1981. They started when a cardiology ward was split up and moved to two new adjacent wards. They ended when the police were called in and the digitalis-type medication possibly used for the alleged killings (digoxin) began to be kept under lock and key. Three nurses were at the centre of the investigation, and an apparent attempt to poison nurses' food. One of the nurses, Susan Nelles, was charged with four murders, but the prosecution was dismissed a year later on the grounds that she could not have been responsible for a death not included in the indictment, which the judge deemed a murder.

A conspiracy between multiple nurses was regarded by the judge as not credible. The lead detective resigned. An official government inquiry discounted claims by the hospital's own former chief of pediatrics that the deaths were not homicides and not proven to be due to digoxin. A second suspect was not prosecuted. It has been later argued that a chemical compound which can leach out of rubber tubing used in medical apparatus for feeding and delivery of medication and which can be mistakenly identified by medical tests as digoxin was the cause of some of the deaths.

Deaths[]

The cardiac ward of the Hospital for Sick Children began what was subsequently found to be a several-fold increase in mortality in June 30 1980.^[1] Within two months, twenty patient deaths led to a group of nurses approaching the unit's cardiologists, but they kept investigation limited and in-house to prevent a "morale problem".^[2] The excess deaths continued, but it was not until March 1981 that a bereaved father's extreme distress led to the coroner being brought in and detecting suspiciously high levels of a heart regulating medication digoxin, a powerful form of digitalis, in a dead baby.^{[2][note 1]}

Eight days later, he was told that an autopsy by the hospital had already found 13 times the normal concentration of the same heart drug in another dead baby.^[1] The medication had not been subject to any security measures.^[3][4] Police were called in and began to search staff lockers when another baby died from digoxin poisoning on 22 March 1981. Examination of work logs and other nurses' subjective impression that a colleague had inappropriate reactions to the deaths led to the arrest and charging with murder of a nurse, who was released on bail.^[2]

In January 1982, babies became ill in a separate department, it was later found that epinephrine, which was not supposed to be on that ward, had somehow been substituted for vitamin E. There had been non-fatal unauthorized digoxin administration to other babies, and another death was, contrary to what the hospital said at the time, caused by unauthorized administration of digoxin.^[5] In September 1981, team leader nurse Phyllis Trayner (died 2011)^[4] found heart drug capsules in food she was eating, and another nurse found the capsules in her soup.^[4][6]

Police investigation and inquiry[]

Susan Nelles was arrested and charged with murder, but a judge acquitted her at the preliminary hearing stage and the case never went to trial, partly because she had not been on duty when one death the judge decided was an additional murder occurred, and more than one nurse being involved in a series of motiveless murders strained credulity.^[4][5] The exonerated nurse did not believe that there had been any murders, and in a 2011 interview she reiterated that the 1985 inquiry report had been incorrect in stating that many deaths during a rise in mortality on the ward (from one a week to five) had been deliberate homicides.^[4][2] Data from the investigation was sent to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which discovered that another nurse, Phyllis Trayner, was the only person who had been on duty for all 29 cases of death being looked at.^[4] A commission of inquiry listed eight of the baby deaths as murder, with another 13 as highly suspicious. Even after the commission had started its work, another death apparently by digoxin poisoning occurred. The commission decided not to take it into account.^[2]

Trayner, who denied any impropriety in her behaviour on the ward, was questioned in televised inquiry hearings, and resigned after the inquiry's report was published. It has later been suggested that leakage of a toxic chemical constituent of rubber tubing called MBT-2, known to be able to cause an allergic reaction and in some cases death, was the cause of some of the deaths. MBT-2 can easily be mistaken for digoxin by the usual tests for the latter substance.^[7] The case is listed by some authors as one of unsolved murders^[2] though most researchers in the field of health care serial killers accept that there is little reason to believe that any murders took place. Claims of flawed testing, hasty police work and scientific advancements have seriously challenged the conclusion of the enquiry that foul play was involved, and the whole case is referred to as a witch-hunt.^[4]

See also[]

• Ann Arbor Hospital Murders — another inconclusive case in which nurses were accused of apparently motiveless homicides.
• Charles Cullen — convicted serial killer nurse who used digoxin.
• Lucia de Berk — Dutch nurse convicted of murder in major miscarriage of justice due to misidentification of digoxin poisoning.
• List of fugitives from justice who disappeared
• List of unsolved murders

Notes[]

References[]

Bibliography[]

• Newton, Michael (2006). The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers (2nd ed.). New York: Checkmark Books. ISBN 978-0-73947-249-1.
• Hamilton, Gavin (2011). The Nurses are Innocent. New York: Dundurn. ISBN 978-1459700574.

External links[]

• Nelles case summary
• Nelles v. Ontario
• Hospital Phantoms