Japanese nurse ‘poisoned 20 patients who were close to death to make sure they died when she was off-duty so she didn’t have to break the news to their families’
Ayumi Kuboki, 31, arrested by police last week for allegedly poisoning patients
She was questioned in June over the suspicious deaths of four elderly people
During questioning she allegedly admitted to poisoning up to 20 people
Kuboki told police she wanted the patients to die on another nurse’s shift so that she wouldn’t have to explain the deaths to their families
Cops began investigating after another nurse spotted bubbles inside the IV drip bag of 88-year-old patient Nobuo Yamaki
After Yamaki he died in September 2016, doctors determined that he had died from poisoning after finding a high concentration of antiseptic solution in his bloodstream The same
The chemical was found injected into more unused saline IV solutions and on the uniform of just one staff, nurse Kuboki
‘Killer Nurse’ Ayumi Kuboki, admitted to fatally poisoning 20 patients at Oguchi Hospital, near Tokyo, Japan. She told interviewers she only targeted the terminally ill
A nurse in Japan has been arrested on suspicion of poisoning up to 20 patients so they wouldn’t die on her shift.
Ayumi Kuboki, 31, allegedly poisoned the elderly people by injecting their IV drips with antiseptic solution at Oguchi Hospital, around 20 miles south of Tokyo, in 2016.
Kuboki told police that she hastened the patients’ deaths so that they died on another nurse’s shift and she didn’t have to break the news to their families, newspaper Asahi Shimbun reports.
Nurses at Oguchi Hospital are expected to break the news to families if patients die while they are on duty.
‘It would be troublesome if that responsibility fell on me,’ Kuboki allegedly told investigators.
Police launched their probe after another nurse spotted bubbles inside the IV drip bag of 88-year-old patient Nobuo Yamaki after he died in September 2016.
Bubbles are an indication that a bag has potentially been tampered with.
Doctors found a high concentration of antiseptic solution in Yamaki’s bloodstream and determined that he had died from poisoning.
Media try to get shots of Japanese nurse Ayumi Kuboki, {photo] leaves for a prosecutors’ office in a police car in Yokohama’s Naka Ward on July 9. She is facing allegations that she injected the IV drips of elderly patients with antiseptic solution so they would die on another nurse’s shift
Kuboki, 31, was arrested on July 7 on suspicion of killing Sozo Nishikawa, 88, on Sept. 18, 2016, by introducing fatal quantities of harmful chemicals into the patient’s medication in a short period of time at Oguchi Hospital in Yokohama’s Kanagawa Ward.
Kuboki deliberately it is alleged, injected the IV drips of elderly patients with dense antiseptic solution so they would die on another nurse’s shift.
Police believe she administered the agent between 3 p.m. and 4:55 p.m. that day, according to the sources. Nishikawa was confirmed dead at 7 p.m.
Kuboki told investigators that she poisoned more patients, including Nobuo Yamaki, 88, who shared a room with Nishikawa at the hospital, and who died two days after Nishikawa.
An autopsy confirmed the presence the same antiseptic was found in the bloodstream, of both patients, prompting police to open an investigation at the hospital.
The antiseptic was then discovered in the bodies of two further patients, an 89-year-old man and a 78-year-old woman who have not been named.
Police also discovered ten unused intravenous drip bags at the nurses’ station tainted with the antiseptic solution.
Investigators found tiny punctures in the rubber seals of the bags, indicating that the antiseptic had been injected into them.
The murders happened at Oguchi Hospital [photo], 20 miles south of Tokyo, around September 2016. Nurse Kuboki at the time was working on the fourth floor.
When police investigators checked all uniforms worn by nurses in charge of the patients on the fourth floor, they found the antiseptic on only one uniform – that worn by Kuboki – around the pocket.
After her arrest, Kuboki allegedly confessed to killing up to 20 patients, but claimed she targeted only the very sick.
However, police have cast doubt on those claims, saying some of the patients who died during that period were not terminally ill.
Kuboki qualified as a nurse in 2008 and began working at Oguchi Hospital in 2015, where she was known as a quiet but competent employee.
A series of disturbing incidents were then reported on the fourth floor where she worked in 2016, where nurses’ uniforms were ripped and drinks were spiked with a foreign substance.
The incidents stopped around August 2016, before the first deaths happened.
Kuboki quit the hospital before she was questioned over the deaths in June, before her arrest on July 7.
Subsequently, police questioned Kuboki in late June, after she quit the hospital. She admitted to the slaying allegations on the second day of questioning, according to the sources.
In an interview with The Asahi Shimbun in December, Kuboki said, “I have worked hard to help patients die in peace, so I was shocked by the incidents.”
She has not yet entered a plea.
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