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Murder trial against fake doctor from Fritzlar: Dr. Dr. med. death

2021-01-27T19:49:31.525Z


Thanks to forged papers, Meike W. was an anesthetist in the operating room. She is said to have killed five patients and caused serious damage to even more people. In the end, she turned herself in for employment fraud.


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Alleged crime scene clinic for the Holy Spirit in Fritzlar

Photo: Uwe Zucchi / dpa

The defendant does not enter the trial room until the presiding judge has sent the press photographers out.

Meike S., now 50 years old, wears an anorak with a fur-trimmed hood, a medical mask on her face, and reading glasses pushed into her dark hair.

She has been in custody for more than a year and looks crying.

There were times when Meike S. was happy about public interest.

Once she wanted to become mayor of the SPD in Bad Emstal, but was not elected.

Sometimes she appeared as a lecturer in a health school when Dr.

Dr.

med., according to a letter of assessment "very popular with schoolchildren".

Only: Dr.

Meike S. is not a doctor at all, she has a doctorate in biochemistry with a focus on human genetics.

The University of Kassel is currently still checking whether that was also cheated.

Between 2015 and 2018 Meike S., at that time still Meike W., worked in the Hospital of the Holy Spirit in Fritzlar.

As an assistant doctor in anesthesia, she put anesthesia on her own.

Five patients died and eleven others were seriously injured.

Instead of helping the patient, she did nothing

For this, Meike S. has to answer before the Kassel district court since today, prosecutor Josephine Köpf is chasing through the indictment at high speed: According to this, Meike S. is said to have violated the Heilpraktikergesetz and stolen the financing of an expensive Alfa Romeo.

She was wrong to use her doctorate: When she applied to Fritzlar, she presented a license to practice medicine, says Köpf, "but in truth it was made on the Apple iMac in 2015".

Köpf now comes to counts 12 to 17 - the dead: Meike S. dosed the wrong medication, in one case ignored a critical drop in blood pressure, in the other an acute right heart failure.

You have overlooked that a patient had choked under anesthesia.

Instead of vacuuming, she did: nothing.

"She was aware that she was not able to perform anesthesia lege artis," says Köpf in the direction of the accused.

In five cases, the death of the patient was the result.

“Out of self-interest” she “accepted death from anesthetic errors”.

Köpf rates this as a five-fold murder, plus multiple attempted murder, serious bodily harm.

She continued after five deaths

Meike S. slumps a little deeper in her chair, she shakes her head as if she can't grasp what the prosecutor is accusing her of.

Even after the deaths, Meike S. continued: Among other things, she is said to have financed a car costing 59,000 euros through fraud and worked as a rehabilitation doctor for four months in a clinic in Schleswig-Holstein at the end of 2018.

She had started the investigation herself, through a voluntary disclosure - for employment fraud.

The employee of a state medical association had already discovered inconsistencies in her license to practice medicine.

A police officer appears as a witness, he has reconstructed the professional work of Meike S., at least in his paper form.

For three hours, the presiding judge Volker Mütze reads one document after the other: Abitur certificate, certificates for internships in a doctor's practice, certificates of enrollment and de-registration, a document from the city of Kassel, according to which Meike W. is permitted under the Heilpraktikergesetz to “practice medicine without being a doctor ”.

Liquidations in which the biochemist who has meanwhile received her doctorate - diploma: very good - settled services as a doctor with her own practice.

She won over her employers

The chairman pulls a greenish hand-made paper from the files, richly decorated with flourishes on the edge, the certificate identifies the defendant as a doctorate from the University of Brixton.

From then on, Meike W. appeared as »Dr.

Dr.

med. «.

"Anyone can buy the title there," explains the police officer.

Her employers, however, convinced Meike S. The health school, at which she worked as a lecturer, issued her almost enthusiastic-sounding letters of reference: No matter whether internal medicine, hematology, neuroanatomy, anatomy - »Dr.

Dr.

Meike W. is an excellent lecturer, methodologically varied with excellent specialist knowledge. "

And then there are the numerous certificates for medical training from the Hessian state medical associations that Meike S. attended.

They are real, they were paid for by the Fritzlar Clinic.

Accordingly, Meike S. trained in emergency medicine and tumor medicine, in computed tomography, radiation diagnostics - and also in anesthesia.

"I want to follow my calling as a doctor"

"She thinks about the work, carries it out independently, self-critically, conscientiously, careful to avoid mistakes," wrote a superior from Fritzlar.

Meike S. applied to the Ostseeklinik in Schleswig-Holstein with such assessments.

She has mastered various anesthesia procedures, she wrote, has the additional title of "emergency medicine", wants to combine conventional medicine and holistic medicine, in short: "I want to follow my calling as a doctor."

Exhausted, the chairman puts down the last letter.

The defendant stares into space.

Everything there.

In the morning, defense attorney Sven Schoeller took the floor instead of his client: Yes, the proceedings will undoubtedly prove that Meike S. worked as the wrong doctor "and that our client's professional career was based on imposture".

But she was not a multiple murderer, because she had in no way condoned the death of her patients, and her life as a doctor was also not a mere lie: there had never been any complaints about her work, "on the contrary, she was certified as being impeccable," said Schoeller: "She successfully performed 500 anesthesia, 160 of them before the first one, which is now listed as one of five completed murders in the indictment."

Meike S., so her defense lawyer says, could have trusted that her work would not have any fatal consequences.

The court initially set 13 trial days until the end of March.

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Source: spiegel

All life articles on 2021-01-27

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