Not Dead Yet, Press Release

Not Dead Yet the resistance in Black Gothic Lettering

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Disability Activist Say Saldivar Guilty Plea "Just the Beginning"

On Tuesday, disability advocates warned that the guilty plea entered by Efren Saldivar should be regarded as the beginning - rather than the end - of seeking justice and protection for old, ill and disabled people in health care settings. They point out that Saldivar, a respiratory therapist, was fired from several other hospitals when his suspected homicidal activities were discovered, but none of them reported him to the police, or even to his next employer. This is, at best, somewhere between cover-up and collusion.

"I'm afraid that Saldivar is just the ugly tip of the iceberg," said Stephen Drake, research analyst for Not Dead Yet, a national disability rights group opposed to legalized euthanasia. "The negligence of Saldivar's employers - all those who passed him along to the next medical setting - enables serial killers like Saldivar to engage to continue killing from one job to another."

Not Dead Yet demands thorough background checks on all who work, or seek work, in medical facilities! We demand complete accountability when a person dies in a hospital, instead of the current situation of not-so-benign neglect.

The sad fact is that Saldivar's enablement by employers is typical of the cases that are detected or prosecuted. Consider the following cases:

* In 1999, nurse Cheryl May pleaded guilty to criminal negligence and admitted that she injected 69-year-old Philip Harmon with an excessive amount of morphine. She is suspected of killing six patients, with physical evidence found of lethal drug doses in 3 of those patients.

* Indiana State Police believe Orville Lynn Majors killed as many as 100 people where he was suspended under suspicion of giving unauthorized injections. In April, 1995, state police began investigating 165 deaths that occurred at the Vermillion County Hospital from May, 1993, to March, 1995. The hospital failed to report the dramatic rise in its death rate, as required by Indiana state law. Majors worked - and presumably killed - for many months after the staff recognized there was a killer in the hospital and were pretty sure who he was. Only anonymous phone calls by staff to state authorities brought the killing to an end. Major was charged and ultimately convicted in the murders of 6 people out of the hundred he is suspected of killing.

* In Michigan last February, Anne Nicolai confessed to her boyfriend that she had killed 3 elderly patients with morphine. Despite an exhumation and autopsy that revealed ex-patient Helen Walling died of morphine poisoning, Nicolai has not yet been charged with anything.

* In Massachusetts, nurse Kristen Gilbert was tried for the murder of 4 patients at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Northampton. The charges were originally leveled by three coworkers. Although she was charged with a small number of murders, her total is suspected to be much higher. Eventually, she was found guilty of 4 acts of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.

* In Nocona, Texas, police are currently investigating the possible murders of as many as 24 elderly patients at the Nocona General Hospital. The hospital seems to have alerted authorities to a rise in their death rates in an unusually prompt manner - the dramatic rise in their death rate had only been going on for two months at the time of their reporting to authorities.

* In spite of his 1985 conviction in the non-fatal poisoning of several coworkers, Michael Swango found work as a doctor in Illinois, Virginia, South Dakota, New York, and Zimbabwe. He was also discharged as a medical resident from an Ohio program due to their suspicions in the death of a patient under his care - but they wrote glowing reference letters for him. Suspected of killing as many as 60 people or more, Swango plead guilty to the murder of 3 patients in New York in a plea bargain to avoid the death penalty.

These killings are able to take place in a medical culture that abhors outside supervision and accountability. They are the result of a system that puts few meaningful checks on the practitioners within it.

The deaths discussed here total over 200 people suspected of being murdered by medical professionals entrusted with their care. Given the fact that deaths of the elderly are treated as routine, it's probable that this is a very small fraction of the murders actually being committed.

Isn't it time we called for more accountability and outside supervision of our medical facilities. Hospitals operate under financial, legal and public relations incentives to sweep suspicious deaths under the rug. Better than that, they have learned that it's cheaper and more efficient to avoid looking for suspicious deaths at all.

At some time or other, any of us could find ourselves at the mercy of the medical system. Don't we deserve better protection than the victims of killers like Saldivar, Majors, Swango, and others received?