Story By: Georgina Jadikovska, Sub-Editor: Marija Stojkoska, Agency: Newsflash
A respected German doctor who once stood as a candidate for local mayor and lectured on medicine is facing five murder charges and 11 manslaughter charges after it was revealed she forged her qualifications.
Meike S., 50, was unqualified and her own experience in medicine had been as a naturopath, an alternative medicine practitioner that uses pseudoscientific practices branded as ‘natural’ and ‘non-invasive’, and promoted ‘self-healing’.
Instead of studying for necessary qualifications, she reportedly forged documentation on her iMac saying she was a medic so she could get a job in the anaesthesiology department of Heiligen Geist Hospital in the German town of Fritzlar.
Prosecutors said the woman caused the deaths of five people and also faced 11 attempted murder charges regarding patients who almost died.
She also faces GBH charges, falsification of documents, and abuse of professional titles.
During the first day of trial, Meike S. who is the mother of an adult child and is on her third marriage, sat quietly in the courtroom and made no comment.
Her lawyer Sven Schoeller claimed: “The evidence will undoubtedly show that our client forged her degree, however, Meike is not a murderer. Murder and attempted murder require an intention of killing.”
He said that by the time of the first charge on the indictment, she had already carried out 80 anaesthesias without a single complaint, and there had even been talk of her “impeccable work” during her probationary assessment.
The indictment for the trial, due to take place in March, revealed that Meike S. was employed as an assistant doctor in the hospital’s anaesthesiology department between 2015 and 2018.
In that time, she was anaesthetising patients without any supervision of a senior doctor despite the fact that she did not even have basic training.
Treatments errors, such as incorrect dosage of anaesthetics, were spotted in 16 cases, out of which five (two men aged 58 and 80, and three women aged 77, 81 and 86) later died, according to local media.
In the other 11 cases, there was serious damage to the patients’ health.
Reports said that she also illegally worked in a rehabilitation clinic in the district of Poeln at the end of 2018 for four months, and also appeared as a guest lecturer in medical schools thanks to her fake Ph.D. titles.
She even stood as a candidate for mayor in her local municipality of Bad Emstal in 2012 where she boasted in interviews on local TV of her extensive medical experience and qualifications.
Prosecutors said it was yet another sign of a desperate need for “social recognition”.
She was caught when attempting to change jobs and irregularities in her paperwork were spotted, and at the same time an anonymous report was filed with the authorities exposing what she had been doing.
It turned out that Meike S. falsified paperwork showing that she studied medicine in Mainz from 1990 to 1997. The indictment said that during the time when she was a fake doctor she had been paid EUR 245,000 to which she was not entitled.
Bosses at Heiligen Geist Hospital in Fritzlar announced that they are glad the sad chapter is closed.
The trial is scheduled for the end of March. Meike S. is currently in custody.
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