DEATH IN HOSPITAL

Taranaki Daily News, 23 December 1931, Page 5

DEATH IN HOSPITAL

OVERDOSE OF MEDICINE. ) . .. . ■ . . * • -.; ■> NURSE COMMITTED FOR TRIAL. The Melbourne coroner held *an inquiry recently into the death, of Mrs. Annie Spruzen, aged 68 years, of Kew, who died in a private hospital on (November 18 following an overdose of sleeping mixture. Alena Dorothy Isabel Wallis, a trained nurse, who was stated to have administered the mixture, was committed for trial on a charge of manslaughter. According to the evidence, Sister Wallis, who was doing night duty for Mrs. Spruzen, told him that Mrs. Spruzen had complained of sleeplessness, and she had given her & dose and a half of her husbandia medicine about two o’clock in the morning. She did not know the strength of the mixture. About nine o’clock in the morning she noticed that Mrs. Spruzen’s respiration was slow, and telephoned for a doctor, but Mrs. Spruzen collapsed and died in the afternoon.