Actually its 10 not 35. And they were terminated so they filed a lawsuit. To defend themselves they have to defend him.
"Ten former colleagues of an Ohio physician
accused earlier this year of murdering 25 of his hospital patients with excessive doses of pain medicine are standing by him, alleging in a lawsuit filed Thursday that the hospital wrongfully terminated and defamed them."
This should be easy to verify, just look at the hospital's written policy. From your link:
"The ex-colleagues contend that Husel, who had additional certification in anesthesiology, had been working within the hospital's "flexible and discretion-permitting policies" that allowed doctors and staff to administer "high but appropriate doses of fentanyl" to patients who were being removed from life support. They maintain that no one was trying to hasten those patients' deaths with pain medication or to euthanize them, which is illegal in Ohio."
...
"Becky McNeil, a former clinical educator at Mount Carmel who began her career as a registered nurse in the ICU in 2000, said patients who were being kept alive by ventilators and other life support measures were evaluated differently. If life support was being withdrawn, she said, those patients might require higher doses of fentanyl than would patients who didn't have minutes left to live.
And just because someone was uncommunicative or unconscious, she added, didn't mean they weren't in pain and didn't require relief.
"You can see people tense up, or they may have an increased heart rate," McNeil said of those patients."
These were patients being taken off life support, who were probably going to die shortly. Dr. Husel specialized in anesthesia, so had more training in administering pain meds in these situations. Having been present for family members at the end of life, the procedures to prevent patients suffering has to be done carefully. Usually, the nurses or doctors will advise family members of the risks in providing these drugs.
Fentanyl has been used to control extreme pain in terminally ill cancer patients for decades, and I assume its used for other health conditions. It's a very fine line between adequately treating pain for these patients and having the medication cause their death. No one wants a patient to die in pain.
I'm beginning to think Dr. Husel didn't do anything wrong here, unless there's other incriminating evidence to come. If the hospital administrators wanted more specific guidelines about the use of pain medication in these situations, they should have prepared them before this happened. Also assuming the decision to remove these patients from life support was made by a team of doctors with the consent of family, per standard practice.
Yes, a lot of patients died under his care, but that's the nature of his job. He was primarily caring for very sick patients being removed from life support. It's a terrible job, but someone has to do it. If, as the hospital claims, there were 6 patients who could have continued living on life support, they should have charged the doctor with those deaths only.
JMO, this is a difficult situation, but I'm getting the impression the hospital overreacted with these charges. They claim they charged on cases where the doctor administered 500 micrograms of fentanyl, which is equivalent to 0.5 milligrams. A fatal dose (as in a drug overdose) of fentanyl is considered to be 2 milligrams, so the amount Dr. Husel administered is below the level considered an overdose.
Fentanyl: What Is a Lethal Dosage? - Oxford Treatment Center
It will be interesting to see, in the cases of the 6 patients in question, how much other doctors were involved in the treatment of these patients prior to their death and what decisions were made by whom when patients were put on life support and later removed from it.
ETA: This earlier article claims he gave one patient 2000 micrograms of fentanyl, which would be 2 mg considered an overdose
Attorney: Husel gave patient paralytics before lethal fentanyl dose
