Mother charged with injecting faeces into cancer-stricken son 'to get better treatment'

An Indiana mother is accused of injecting her 15-year-old son's intravenous (IV) drip with faeces while he was undergoing cancer treatment in a bid to get him better hospital treatment.

Tiffany Alberts, 41, of Wolcott, Indiana, is charged with six counts of aggravated battery and one count of neglect of a dependent resulting in serious bodily injury following incidents which occurred while her son was getting chemotherapy for his leukaemia at the Riley Hospital for Children.

An investigation was launched after the hospital was concerned about the unexplainable infections the teenage boy was suffering, which were delaying his chemoptherapy.

He was sent home following his first bout of treatment in September, but returned several days later after experiencing fever, diarrhoea and vomiting.

During assessment, doctors also found the boy had positive blood cultures with organisms that are normally found in stool and that there was no medical reason for the ongoing blood infection, reported Wlfi.

Video surveillance was then placed in the boy's room in November, with allegedly showed Alberts injecting his IV drip with an unknown substance several times, according to court documents.

At first, she claimed she was only injecting water into the drip to "flush the line" because the "medicine that was given to him burned." However, she later admitted that she was injecting her son's IV drip with faecal matter in order to get him moved to an another unit at Riley, which she believed gave better treatment.

Doctors said the boy was lucky that he did not die from septic shock. They are also concerned he may die from leukaemia due to the delay of his treatment as a result of the infections.

Hospital staff confirmed the boy's condition did improve once his mother was barred from entering his room. Alberts, a Tri- County Schools teacher, is currently out on bond.