Nurse convicted of killing 2 UK hospital patients with insulin

LONDON – A nurse who described himself as evil was convicted Monday of using insulin to murder two patients at a British hospital in 2011.

Victorino Chua was found guilty by a Manchester Crown Court jury that had been deliberating for 11 days.

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The nurse was cleared of a third murder charge but convicted of attempting to cause grievous bodily harm to that patient. Other patients recovered after receiving similar insulin overdoses.

Chua, 49, was found to have injected insulin into saline bags and ampules while working at the Stepping Hill Hospital in Stockport, 320 kilometres northwest of London. Other nurses who were not aware of the tampering then used the bags and ampules, leading to insulin overdoses.

Prosecutors said the nurse tried to take his frustrations out on his patients, citing a note recovered from his home in which he described himself as “an angel turned into an evil person.”

He wrote “there’s a devil in me” and that there were certain things he would “take to the grave.”

One of his victims was a 44-year-old multiple sclerosis patient being treated for a mild chest infection, who was pronounced dead eight hours later after being treated with a saline ampule containing large amounts of insulin.

The other was an elderly man also with a chest infection, who was put on a saline drip contaminated with insulin. He died 10 days later.