By McPherse Thompson, Gleaner WriterMANCHESTER, England:
A BRITISH NURSE whose unorthodox treatment of a Jamaican pensioner triggered a police investigation into her care of patients, was convicted on Friday, June 18, and imprisoned for five years for trying to kill patients in an attempt to free up hospital beds.
Barbara Salisbury, 49, a ward sister, was freed of a charge of attempting to murder the Jamaican, 81-year-old Reuben Thompson, who never recovered and died in March 2002 after she laid him flat in bed and removed his oxygen supply in the hope that he would choke to death. Also, she was freed of a charge of attempting to murder a Briton, James Byrne, 76, a widower, who died two days after she allegedly administered him an overdose of the painkiller diamorphine.
However, Salisbury, dubbed the "Angel of Death" by sections of the British media and described by a judge as "callous and unprofessional" with a "cold and hard" demeanour, was convicted of giving overdoses of the same painkillers to May Taylor, 88, and Frank Owen, 92, knowing it would probably kill them. Both Mrs. Taylor and Mr. Owen were already extremely ill and died within hours at Leighton Hospital in Crewe, Cheshire, in England's North West.
During her trial which started six weeks ago at Chester Crown Court, the prosecution alleged that Salisbury, a mother of two daughters, including a 23-year-old police officer, regarded elderly patients who were going to die as a waste of bed space and set about to kill the four seriously-ill pensioners to free space for patients with a chance of recovering.
BETRAYED
In sentencing her, Mr. Justice Pitchford told Salisbury she had betrayed the trust put in her by patients and their families by choosing to "exercise control over the life and death of patients whose time had not quite come."
The court heard that the investigation into Salisbury's activities was triggered when a nurse on the ward, Alexandra McNally, became concerned while treating Mr. Thompson. Mrs. McNally believed Salisbury was trying to trick doctors into prescribing the patient with diamorphine through a Graseby, an automatic device which administers the pain-killer. Witnesses described how she would consistently push the booster on the Graseby and in the process overdose patients.
Doctors did not prescribe the treatment for Mr. Thompson, a retired factory worker who settled in Crewe after emigrating from Jamaica in the early 1960s. When she did not get her wish, Salisbury laid Mr. Thompson flat in bed and removed his oxygen supply. It was the prosecution's case that Mr. Thompson survived then only because a senior care worker found him in distress in a side room of the ward where Salisbury usually administers inappropriate doses of drugs to patients, laid them flat on their backs so it was difficult for them to breathe, or remove drips. But the prosecution contended that Salisbury "wanted Reuben Thompson off the ward one way or another."
It was the same treatment she administered to Mr. Owen. Nurses who blew the whistle on Salisbury told how she persistently pressed for Mr. Owen to be discharged from the hospital, but failed to convince doctors he was well enough. Mr. Owen escaped Salisbury's attention for about three months when she went on vacation leave. But, according to witnesses, when she returned and found Mr. Owen still occupying a bed she snapped, "What's he still doing here?" Salisbury instructed
nurses to, like Mr. Thompson, lie Mr. Owen flat, advising them that "with any luck, his lungs will fill with fluid and he will die."
IGNORED
When nurses ignored Sali-sbury's demands, she twice gave Mr. Owen diamorphine, ignoring nurses' advice that he was not in pain. Five minutes after Salisbury administered the treatment Mr. Owen was dead. Shortly after, a manager, unaware of her role in causing Mr. Owen's death, asked if his death had been peaceful, whereupon Salisbury replied, "Yes, thanks to me," adding that the injection had "done the trick."
Although nurses had expressed concerns about Salisbury's treatment of patients, especially after Mrs. Taylor's death in March 2002, the hospital took no action and she continued to take charge of the ward in question. According to one report, nurses found Salisbury arrogant and intimidating and it was only when she went on leave at the end of April 2002 that they complained in sufficient numbers for the police to be called in. In court, Salisbury claimed to have no recollection of the patients she was charged with trying to kill.
