Investigators question nurse’s qualifications
A FILIPINO nurse convicted of two counts of murder in the United Kingdom has been sentenced to a minimum of 35 years in prison.
Victorino Chua,49, was found guilty Monday, May 18, of murdering Tracy Arden, 44, and Alfred Weaver, 83. Chua tampered with saline bags and ampoules while working at Stepping Hill Hospital in Stockport in June and July 2011 by injecting them with insulin. The bags were then unwittingly used by other nurses, which resulted in insulin overdoses.
Chua was also convicted of 22 counts of attempted grievous bodily harm, one count of grievous bodily harm, seven attempts of administering poison and one count of administering poison.
Chua was sentenced to life in prison on Tuesday, May 19 with a term of at least 35 years by Mr. Justice Openshaw.
“It is a striking, sinister and truly wicked feature of the case that he did not personally administer contaminated products directly to most of these patients for, having left saline bags and ampoules contaminated with insulin in the treatment rooms, he did not know which nurse would innocently collect them, still less to which patient the nurse would then unwittingly administer the poison,” the judge said.
“Thus, nearly all the victims were chosen at random; it is as if he left it to fate to decide who would be the victim.”
Chua, a father of two, showed no emotion when he was told he would be an old man – 84 years old – before he could be considered for parole, The Guardian reported.
The families of Chua’s victims were at Manchester Crown Court as he was sentenced.
Gary Arden, whose sister Tracey was killed by Chua, said he felt “surprisingly nothing” for him.
“He’s been sentenced, and the most important thing is he’s not able to do this to anybody else,” Arden added.
Another victim, Grant Misell, 41, suffered from brain damaged after being poisoned, as the insulin overdose deprived his brain of oxygen. Misell was reported to make a slow but imperfect recovery.
Chua was cleared of the murder of Arnold Lancaster, 71, but was found guilty of attempting to cause him grievous bodily harm.
In a self-penned letter entered as evidence, Chua wrote he was “an angel turned into an evil person” and “there’s a devil in me.” He further wrote of having things he would “take to the grave.”
In a statement, the Stockport NHS Foundation Trust offered words toward victims of Chua’s actions and their families.
“We know they have suffered great distress but hope this sentence helps provide some closure for them in terms of seeing that justice has been served.”
Concerns about foreign medical qualifications
During the investigation leading to Chua’s arrest, discrepancies raised questions about whether or not the Filipino nurse was fully qualified while working in the UK’s National Health Service. Detectives went so far as to visit Galang Training College – which no longer exists – where Chua said he obtained his medical qualifications. His actions have stirred fears regarding foreign nurses working at British hospitals.
“In all my 24 years as a prosecutor, I have never escalated concerns to another government department except in this case,” Nazir Afzal, who headed the Crown Prosecution Service in north-west England from 2011 through earlier this year, told BBC North West Tonight. “I do not know whether there were hundreds or thousands or dozens. What I do know is the opportunities were there for them to lie about their qualifications, to obtain them fraudulently, and to cover up their disciplinary matters.”
In an article published in the Daily Mail Online, the author, Stephen Wright, wrote about “a rampant trade in bogus exam certificates in Manila.” Wright described how he was able to obtain a phony degree certificate, police clearance, employment certificates and references for £43, equivalent to about $67.
“On Recto Avenue in downtown Manila are stalls openly offering fake nursing degrees, education records, diploma pictures, police clearance to work overseas, passports, driving licenses and birth and marriage certificates. Police turn a blind eye in return for bribes,” he wrote.
Wright further added that it is an obstacle for many in the impoverished Philippines to find money to pay for their degrees, which heightens the temptation to simply purchase the qualifications needed to work in the United Kingdom where salaries are considerably higher.
The Nursing and Midwifery Council in the country, however, revealed that in a review of nurses who trained outside of the European economic area – including 11,500 Filipino records – only four with fraudulent qualifications were found in the last decade.
“We checked every single record – I think that was a proportionate response to this one-off but very tragic and very serious event,” said council Chief Executive Jackie Smith, according to the BBC.
Smith added that not all records of other overseas countries have been checked.
“We took advice on what would be a sample of a review across the register that would give us confidence.
“There is no such thing as a fool-proof system – we are not a fraud agency – but we do have a system in place that doesn’t just rely on documentation,” she said.
The council issued a temporary hiring freeze in 2013 due to fears of fake documentation from foreigners. Still, many nurses are being recruited from the Philippines due to a significant shortfall of staff.
Wright called the Daily Mail’s findings a “major embarrassment” to ministers, hospital chiefs, and officials at the council, as it is responsible for regulating nursing. However, he also wrote that most Filipino nurses are qualified and possess the proper credentials to work in the United Kingdom. (With reports from Asian Journal, BBC, Daily Mail Online, Inquirer, The Guardian and The Telegraph)
(LA Weekend May 23-26, 2015 Sec. A pg.12)
