Hospital ‘poison’ saline bag probe still going a year later
AN NHS worker is still being probed a year after saline bags were tampered with by a possible copycat “poisoner”.
Damaged drips were found by staff at the Cumberland Infirmary in the Lake District on January 4.
A 24-year-old, from Wigton, Cumbria, was arrested in July but no one has yet been charged.
DCS Andy Slattery, Cumbria Police’s top CID officer, took charge of the investigation. But the force has admitted the probe is “ongoing”. The incident came 18 months after nurse Victorino Chua was jailed for life for poisoning bags of saline 130 miles away at Stepping Hill Hospital in Stockport, Greater Manchester. Two patients died and a third suffered brain damage. After the Cumberland scare, all saline bags were replaced but hospital chiefs stressed no patients were affected.