Japan probes hospital poisoning deaths
Print Edition
JAPANESE police are probing the deaths of 46 patients on the same floor of a hospital where a pair of elderly men were fatally poisoned, reports said yesterday.
An autopsy on the two men who died at the hospital in Yokohama determined they were caused by a chemical found in disinfectant, public broadcaster NHK and other media reported earlier.
Police reportedly suspect the chemical was injected into intravenous drips that were administered to the two 88-year-old victims, Sozo Nishikawa and Nobuo Yamaki. The men died last month.
But the probe has grown with authorities looking at how almost four dozen others died at the hospital since early July, although some were already seriously ill.
Hospital staff reportedly found puncture marks in 10 IV bags stored near the nursing station on the same floor.
Replying to a query on whether police had told the hospital of autopsy findings that a surfactant, widely used in disinfectant and cleaning products, was present in the bodies, Yuki Uehara, a lawyer for the hospital, said, “Yes.”
He did not elaborate.
“We have seen many people pass away due to the nature of this hospital, but I had the impression that the number of those dying was rising a bit,” a hospital official told Japan’s official Kyodo News.
Many have already been cremated, making determining a cause of death more difficult, reports said.
Neither police nor the hospital would confirm the news reports, and no suspects have been named.
The investigation comes two months after the murder of 19 people at a center for the mentally disabled, Japan’s worst killing spree in decades.
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