- Daily & Weekly newsletters
- Buy & download The Bulletin
- Comment on our articles
Flemish court looks into suspicious deaths in care homes
The Flemish court system is looking to investigate several suspicious deaths that occurred in a nursing home in 2020.
There are three suspected murder cases and six suspected cases of attempted murder, all taking place at the Rozenberg nursing home in Oostrozebeke in West Flanders.
All employees and anyone with direct access to the residential care centre have been asked to give a sample of their DNA, which will be compared to DNA found on suspect insulin pens seized as part of the investigation.
Cleaning staff are also being asked to provide DNA samples.
If this yields no results, investigators will focus on the approximately 40 nurses who work in the nursing home.
All of the patients who died or nearly died under suspicious circumstances had been diagnosed as suffering from hypoglycemia, a sudden drop in blood sugar levels due to an overdose of insulin.
None of the patients were diabetic, meaning insulin had not been prescribed.
It was also discovered that the insulin found in their systems had not come from the nursing home pharmacy, but had been brought in from outside.
While all three deaths occurred in 2020, the suspected attempted murders continued in summer 2021.