orfi
23.01.02, 23:41
BBC:
By Nicholas Walton in Warsaw
Police in the central Polish city of Lodz are investigating allegations that
doctors killed patients in their care to generate business for local funeral
homes.
The allegations surfaced in a front page report of the leading Polish daily
newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza.
The report says that doctors on an emergency ward in Lodz have killed several
seriously ill patients over the last decade.
The patients were allegedly killed by lethal doses of a drug that causes
asphyxiation, after the families of the victims had agreed to use particular
funeral homes.
The report says the funeral homes then paid the doctors more than $300 per
corpse in return for the business.
Exhumations
The former head of the ambulance service in the city is quoted in the report
as
saying that he was aware of the practice, although he denies any personal
involvement.
The new head of the service says that if such practices still exist they will
be stamped out.
Police in Lodz are reported to be considering exhuming several dozen bodies as
part of their investigation.
The allegations are a blow for the reputation of Poland's health care system
which is already struggling with a lack of money and ageing equipment.
