Copied and pasted below is a text-only "letter to the editor" printed in 
the Deseret News.  Afterwards is Dr. Weitzel's response:

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(Deseret News - Letters to the Editor)

Pursue the Weitzel Case

      Wednesday, August 01, 2001

            Regarding: "Let Dr. Weitzel go free," Readers Forum, July 20:
            Julia Rivers, who recently became aware of the Weitzel case, wants 
      the law to leave him alone. Unfortunately, from her comments she does not 
      understand just what Weitzel did. My mother, Lydia Smith, was one of 
      Weitzel's many alleged victims only because he was allowed to behave 
      criminally to numerous patients before mother's death, and no one stopped 
      him.
            Did the hospital know what was going on? Yes, and they took some 
      baby steps to stop him - after the fact.
            Did the nurses know what was going on? Yes, and several quit their 
      jobs, transferred to other units or complained, but their managers did not 
      back them up. Did the families know what was going on? No, they trusted 
      Weitzel and the hospital to provide tender and competent care and were 
      shocked when told by Weitzel that their parent had suffered an "event" and 
      was dying. The event, as eventually made perfectly clear by hospital 
      records, was that Weitzel allegedly severely overmedicated them until they 
      were comatose, then ordered large doses of morphine.
            Did they die of old age? No! Five victims in just over two weeks in 
      a unit of only 10 patients that had only one death in the previous two 
      years screams of wrongdoing.
            Perhaps Rivers' elderly relative needed pain medication, but none of 
      these five patients had any pain more severe than had been treated with 
      aspirin. My mother was essentially comatose when the morphine started - 
      where is pain in an unconscious patient?
            My mother was physically healthy for her age, had a life expectancy 
      of several more years according to testimony given in Weitzel's first 
      trial, and was seen daily and loved by her family. She played the piano, 
      visited other patients, walked without aid and was full of life before 
      Weitzel's care.
            The prosecutors need to continue the battle to put Weitzel in jail.

      Carolyn Smith Buhman
      Orem

© 2001 Deseret News Publishing Company

 A reply to the letter above>>

 AAPS reply to the letter above>>

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
Response:

Yes, the hospital knew "what was going on".  There was a 
very thorough mortality review done after the coincident deaths, and the hospital 
even flew in out-of-state experts to analyze the situation.  I explained my intent; 
to give compassionate end-of-life care to patients whose families had ordered 
withdrawal of interventions, making them at that point absolutely and unequivocally 
"terminal".  The medical staff and visiting experts concurred in my analysis, and 
the only recommendation made was that if we had other patients who needed hospice 
type care, we transfer, as dying patients were unable to utilize some of the 
specialized treatment modalities, such as group and recreation therapy, that our 
unit was designed to provide.  I continued working at Davis for years, in good 
standing, until I left to pursue a career in Texas.
 

Did the nurses "know what was going on"?  Yes.  And not one complained, at the time.  
Managers "didn't back them up" because there was nothing wrong with the care.  They 
continued to give the medications, and at trial not one nurse would admit giving a 
fatal dose.  Instead they all said they gave "normal" doses.  If this is euthanasia, 
I fail to see how it occurred.
 

Did I overmedicate?  Absolutely not.  All of these patients were completely out of 
control, in no shape for transfer back to a nursing home, right up until becoming 
acutely ill.  (Look at the nursing notes for Ms. Smith.  They are very clear as to 
many weeks of combative, dangerous agitation.  She was agitated two days before she 
died.)  My job was to use medicines to calm the patients' agitation.  If I didn't, the 
alternative was tying them down, hardly a humane action.
 

Finally, the suggestion that any of these patients was "physically healthy" seems

to be the result of a distorted recollection.  

Played the piano?  Maybe in the past, but the nurses documented 
a lady who was severely demented and "visited other patients" only to spit on them 
and hit them.  Ms. Smith at 90 had suffered several strokes and had lost 30 pounds 
recently; she was hardly in good health.
 

I understand that these families have been misinformed by the state lawyers, and 
that they have developed a deep hatred for me.  I understand that it is based on a 
misunderstanding of what actually happened.  I know how I would feel if prosecutors 
came to me with a tale of my elderly loved one not having died naturally and 
peacefully, as the families chose, but having been "murdered".  I am sorry for their 
loss, as I am for anyone's loss to death.  But I am deeply distressed that the state 
lawyers on being told that they had no case and that the care was appropriate chose 
to continue in this misguided, unfair, cynical and wrong persecution.  Doing so not 
only victimizes me, but seriously victimizes the families of my patients.
 

Sincerely,
 

Robert Weitzel, MD

<<Back to Home Page