Mechthild Bach (medical doctor)

Mechthild Bach (* the 30th November 1949 in Wuppertal , † 24. January 2011 in Bad Salzdetfurth ) was a doctorate in German internist who was charged with intentional homicide of patients and killing of a possible conviction itself.

Live and act

The internist Dr. med. For more than 20 years, Mechthild Bach treated countless patients in the Paracelsus Clinic in Langenhagen as an attending doctor in a cancer ward, including many chronically ill and those who were considered to have been out of therapy. At such a ward, prescribing tranquilizers and painkillers is more likely than average , which inspectors of the health insurance companies noticed in the course of investigations on suspicion of billing fraud against other doctors.

After a criminal complaint from the AOK Lower Saxony, Bach was charged in 78 cases by the Hanover public prosecutor's office in May 2003 of killing a total of eight cancer patients (later expanded to 13) in the Paracelsus clinic in Langenhagen between 2001 and 2003 by taking too much morphine and valium . Bach has always denied these allegations. She was temporarily detained and lost her license to practice medicine . She continued to work in the health sector: instead of treating cancer, after training as a “preventologist” in Bad Salzdetfurth, she dealt with cancer prevention .

The appraiser on the part of the public prosecutor was the pain specialist Michael Zenz from Bochum , who accused her of not having mastered the basics of tumor pain therapy at all. There can therefore be no question of indirect euthanasia , as is permitted in Germany. The medical files were also inadequately kept.

In the first trial (presiding judge: Bernd Rümke) eight cases were charged. In the second trial (presiding judge: Wolfgang Rosenbusch) there was a second charge with five further killings. Zenz did not complete the report until April 2009 - five and a half years after being commissioned. It was the duty of the overburdened expert to return the order to the public prosecutor, criticized the defense. Instead, Zenz put self-interests above the defendants' constitutional right to a speedy trial.

For the German Foundation for Patient Protection , this case was not about euthanasia:

“What matters is not what the doctor thinks, but what the patient wants. If the doctor acts without consent , the only question that remains is: manslaughter or murder ? "

Bach was initially defended by medical lawyer Klaus Ulsenheimer , then in two lawsuits that dragged on for years, by Matthias Waldraff and Albrecht-Paul Wegener. The treatment only served to relieve pain , affirmed Bach until the end. The defense complained that exonerating reports (including by Prof. Rafael Dudziak), which her first lawyer had submitted well before the start of the trial, had been ignored by reporter Frank Bürger and his colleagues when the prosecution was admitted . Defense lawyer Wegener filed bias requests against three doctors from Lower Saxony health insurance companies who had also supported the investigation against Bach as an expert. According to the highest court rulings, a private appraiser of an insurance company may not also appear as an expert in court.

The doctor defended herself publicly for the first time in October 2009:

“The therapy was medically indicated in each of the 13 cases . In none of the 13 cases did I shorten the last lifespan of my patients with morphine. "

Waldraff said during the 2010 trial:

"In none of these cases do I see the accusation confirmed that Dr. Bach acted willfully . "

After the chairman of the responsible chamber of the Hanover Regional Court had declared that two of the deaths would also be convicted of murder (medical indication and medical information for patients capable of giving consent were not available, so that the offense of maliciousness was fulfilled), she took morphine overdose kills life.

Waldraff and one of Bach's longstanding patients led the funeral procession at her funeral.

Effects on palliative care

When Bach was arrested in 2004, doctors across Germany reacted with uncertainty. The Aachen pain specialist Lukas Radbruch reported from doctors who called him worried and asked what they were still allowed to do and what not. "The Bach case sets us back ten years," complained Radbruch at the time. And in January 2011 the Humanist Association of Germany asked with concern: "If prison threatens - who should still prescribe enough morphine?"

Media appreciation

Sonja Fröhlich commented in the Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung on January 19, 2011 that it was about "self-determined death", which Bach had made impossible due to a lack of information; that is an “infantilization of the patient”: “Mechthild Bach says she wanted her patients to die with dignity. But without education there is no dying in dignity. "

The NDR television showed on November 2, 2011, the documentation The case Mechthild Bach .

Web links

• Dossier at Spiegel Online
• Collection of links on the topic

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Spiegel.de: Demonstrators demand acquittal
2. ↑ Spiegel.de: Cancer doctor weeps for dead patients
3. ^ Spiegel.de: Death on a drip
4. ↑ Welt.de: Accused cancer doctor commits suicide
5. ↑ haz.de: The most spectacular cases of lawyer Matthias Waldraff
6. ↑ Abendblatt.de: Richter now speaks of "murder" by a cancer doctor
7. ↑ heilpraxisnet.de: Mechthild Bach commits suicide
8. ↑ Evangelisch.de: Patients say “Thank you” to Mechthild Bach's coffin
9. ↑ Jürgen Dahlkamp and Michael Fröhlingsdorf: KLINIKEN: Tod am IVR . In: Der Spiegel . No. 11 , 2004 ( online - Mar. 8, 2004 ).
10. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from May 8, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
11. ↑ haz.de: death or killing? In: Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung , January 19, 2011.
12. ↑ Broadcast on November 2, 2011, midnight