Italian nurse 'killed patients she found annoying'

A nurse has been arrested in Lugo, northeast Italy, after a patient admitted to hospital with a routine illness was found dead with unusual amounts of potassium in her bloodstream.

As police question Daniella Poggiali, 42, about the unexplained death of 78-year-old Rosa Calderoni, they are widening their inquiry to include 37 other deaths from the same hospital. Ten of them are described as "very suspicious", according to the Daily Mail.

The Central European News Agency reports that Poggiali is alleged to have given her patients high doses of potassium because she found them or their families annoying.

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According to the Italian newspaper Libero Quptiano, one of Poggiali's colleagues said the nurse once had a photo taken next to a patient who had died moments earlier.

"I can assure you in that all my professional years of seeing shocking photos, there were few such as these", said prosecutor Alessandro Mancini, the New York Post reports.

Another colleague of Poggiali said that the nurse was once reported to hospital authorities for giving powerful laxatives to patients to make more work for colleagues working on later shifts, the Mail reports.

Prosecutors have acknowledged that that there will be "insurmountable difficulties" in reviewing older cases because potassium fades within the bloodstream within a few days.