Fake doctor gets life in prison for patient deaths in Germany

A German court has sentenced a woman to life in prison for posing as a doctor and causing the deaths of three patients as a result of treatment errors.

The 51-year-old woman, whose identity has been kept hidden as per German rules, was charged with three counts of murder and 10 counts of attempted murder. The judges determined that some patients also suffered serious damages because of the woman.

The woman had worked as an assistant anaesthetist at Fritzlar's Hospital of the Holy Spirit from 2015 to 2018 before she moved to a clinic in northern Germany. The matter came to light after officials from a regional medical association found discrepancies in her records. She later turned herself in for employment fraud.

She had been accused of administering incorrect medication to patients during her time at a hospital in Fritzlar. The woman was arrested in October 2019 following an extensive investigation.

The prosecutors also accused her of failing to treat blood poisoning at the hospital and added that she had acted on the basis of an excessive need for recognition, according to a report in The Independent.

A six-year medical degree followed by another five years training in anaesthesiology is required to become an anaesthetist in Germany. But the woman managed to bypass the process by forging fake documents.

In a similar case reported from Germany in 2020, a man posed as a doctor to coax girls as young as 13-years-old to give themselves electric shocks while he watched it on Skype. The doctor was subsequently found guilty of 13 counts of attempted murder at Munich High Court. He is currently serving an 11-year sentence in prison.

The prosecutors had then said that he convinced his victims he was carrying out a pain study and that he derived sexual pleasure from the act.

"The victims believed he was a scientist and there was no danger to them to carry out the experiment, that's why they agreed," the prosecutors had said. He would also sometimes pay his victims amounts ranging from £200 to £3,000 for participating in the fake study.