Nurse murders five babies and attempts to kill eight more in Argentina
A nurse was yesterday sentenced to life in prison for killing five babies and attempting to murder eight others at a hospital in Argentina.
Brenda Cecilia Aguero injected potassium and insulin into newborns between March and June 2022, taking doses from emergency medical carts without inventory control, prosecutors said.
Under Argentine law, Aguero will not be eligible for parole before serving 35 years.
The babies, all born healthy, died under initially unexplained circumstances at the neonatal ward of the maternity and child hospital in Cordoba province, 370 miles (600 km) northwest of Buenos Aires.
Eight others survived due to swift medical intervention.
The horrifying case bore a stark resemblance to that of Lucy Letby in the UK.
Letby, 35, was found guilty of murdering seven children and attempting to murder seven more between June 2015 and June 2016 while working in the neonatal unit of the Countess of Chester Hospital in Chester, northern England.
The Argentine trial also brought charges against 10 other defendants, including former provincial officials and health professionals for cover-up and dereliction of duty.
Those charged included a former health minister and secretary of health of Cordoba province, as well as the former hospital director.
Aguero, who was arrested in 2022, denied the charges, earlier telling the court 'they have no evidence' and accusing media of portraying her as a 'serial killer.'
Judge Patricia Soria, who presided over the case, shed tears as she read a statement of thanks to jurors at the end of the trial, such was the horrifying nature of the case, the likes of which were unprecedented in Argentina.
Aguero was promptly led from the courtroom in handcuffs and transferred to Bouwer Prison near Cordoba following the conclusion of the trial yesterday evening.
Besides Aguero, the accused included former provincial health minister Diego Cardozo; former hospital director Liliana Asís; former deputy director and head of obstetrics Claudia Ringelheim; former deputy director of administrative management Julio Escudero Salama; former health secretary Pablo Carvajal; former head of legal affairs Alejandro Gauto; former head of nursing Alicia Beatriz Ariza; former head of neonatology Marta Gómez Flores; doctor María Alejandra Luján, who signed several death certificates and allegedly failed to report the deaths; and neonatologist Adriana Luisa Moralez, head of the hospital's Patient Safety Committee.
The jury acquitted Ariza, Luján, Ringelheim, Gauto and Cardozo. The remaining officials were found guilty and received varying sentences, according to local outlet Infobae.
Earlier in the trial, prosecutors argued that Aguero was motivated by career ambitions, according to Infobae.
She was said to have harmed the babies to be the first to detect their symptoms, raise the alarm, and impress her superiors in hopes of being promoted from the obstetrics ward to the neonatal unit.
But the spate of sudden deaths and disturbing symptoms among the babies raised suspicions.
Of the 13 victims examined, many bore unexplained puncture marks in areas not typically used for injections.
Several had potassium and or insulin levels in their blood incompatible with life, which experts said could only have resulted from external injection, according to Infobae's report.
Meanwhile, in the UK, former health secretary Sir Jeremy Hunt this month called for an 'urgent re-examination' of the case of Lucy Letby, just months after he apologised to the families of her victims at a public inquiry.
The Conservative Member of Parliament pleaded for the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), which investigates potential miscarriages of justice, to 'speed up their normally painfully slow process'.
The CCRC is considering evidence presented by Letby's legal team from an international panel of medics who claim poor medical care and natural causes were the reasons for the babies collapsing at the Countess of Chester Hospital's neonatal unit.
The former nurse is serving 15 whole-life orders after she was convicted across two trials at Manchester Crown Court of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder seven others.
Giving evidence in January at the Thirlwall Inquiry over Letby's crimes, Sir Jeremy – who was Health Secretary between 2012 and 2018 – acknowledged the 'appalling crime' took place under his watch.
Lawyers for the families of Letby's victims have dismissed the CCRC investigation as being 'full of analytical holes' and 'a rehash' of the defence case heard at trial.
Letby, from Hereford, lost two bids last year to challenge her convictions at the Court of Appeal, in May for seven murders and seven attempted murders, and in October for the attempted murder of a baby girl which she was convicted of by a different jury at a retrial.
Cheshire Constabulary is continuing a review of deaths and non-fatal collapses of babies at the neonatal units of the Countess of Chester and Liverpool Women's Hospital during Letby's time as a nurse from 2012 to 2016.
A separate probe by the force into corporate manslaughter and gross negligence manslaughter at the Countess of Chester Hospital also remains ongoing.
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