Romanian prosecutors arrest doctors suspected of murder by withholding medication

BUCHAREST (Reuters) - Romanian prosecutors arrested two hospital doctors they suspect murdered a patient by reducing critical blood pressure medication, they said on Wednesday, in a wider case concerning the deaths of 17 people.

An employee of the St. Pantelimon clinical emergency hospital in the capital Bucharest publicly warned in April that 17 people died while in intensive care over four days after their medication was withheld.

At the time, the health ministry and doctors' association said the large number of deaths were an anomaly and that they could not find proof of medical blame.

Prosecutors opened a criminal investigation and on Wednesday they temporarily detained two doctors on suspicion of murder in the death of a 54-year-old patient.

The investigation is ongoing. A nurse was also detained for allegedly lying in her testimony.

The two doctors "conceived and executed a plan to suddenly reduce the dosage of noradrenaline, an essential medication to maintain blood pressure in intensive care, in order to ... trigger the death of patients who needed intensive care but who the accused thought should not be kept alive," prosecutors said in a statement.

Romania's healthcare system, one of the least developed within the European Union, has been dogged by corruption, politicised management and failed oversight.

The state has built one hospital in the last three decades, spends the least on healthcare in the EU and tens of thousands of doctors and nurses have emigrated.

(Reporting by Luiza Ilie; Editing by Josie Kao)