In a care home in Wolfsburg, 47 residents died in a corona outbreak in the spring. The public prosecutor’s office now wants the proceedings against those responsible for information from WDR, Ed and SZ to adjust.
By Sonja Kättner-Neumann, NDR, Arnd Henze and Lena Kampf, WDR
In a corona outbreak in spring, 47 residents of the Hanns-Lilje-Heim in Wolfsburg died. After almost nine months of investigation, the Braunschweig public prosecutor wants to stop the proceedings. A criminal misconduct could not be determined. Learned that WDR, Ed and “Süddeutsche Zeitung” (SZ) from legal circles and from relatives who had turned to the authority.
The catastrophe in the diaconal facility for people with dementia made international headlines in March and April. Of the approximately 160 residents, 112 were sick with Corona at the time, 47 of them died. More than 40 nurses were also infected.
Evaluation of all medical records
A Wolfsburg lawyer had filed a criminal complaint and justified it with alleged references to catastrophic hygiene and working conditions in the home. The allegations were widely taken up in many media and contributed to the image of the facility as a “horror home”.
The proceedings for negligent homicide were directed against the chairman of the Diakonie Wolfsburg, which is the sponsor of the home. In the room it was stated whether the treatment of the corona cases in the home was illegal – including through omission. The public prosecutor not only questioned relatives and nurses, but also evaluated all medical records.
Relief for the nursing staff
In comparable cases, investigations were discontinued after a few weeks if no apparent misconduct was apparent. The Braunschweig judicial spokesman had repeatedly argued that in such a tragedy it was owed to everyone involved to get to the bottom of all allegations and thus to help in the end to distinguish between justified criticism and untenable allegations.
In a ARD-Documentation showed caregivers how stigmatizing these allegations had on the home. Employees from the Hanns-Lilje-Heim were correspondingly relieved in view of the planned suspension of the criminal proceedings: “It is now evident that we were wrongly pilloried,” says one nurse. A colleague added: “It’s good if we don’t have to take this pressure with us into the new year.”
The lawyer and the relatives who filed the criminal complaint against the Diakonie now have two weeks to object to the setting. Only then can the proceedings be finalized.
