Doctor injects anaesthetics 20 times in six hours into insomniac girlfriend, kills her

The social media platform in China strongly criticised a Chinese doctor after he administered anaesthesia more than 20 times in six hours to his girlfriend, who was suffering from insomnia, which led to her death.

The doctor, whose surname is Qu, worked as an anesthesiologist in a hospital in Jiajiang county, southwestern China.

In 2022, the doctor had met the victim - who had the surname Chen - on an online dating platform. She was working as a pharmaceutical sales representative, as per Cover News.

After the couple got together, Chen used to ask his girlfriend to take propofol, which is a major anaesthesia, to frequently improve her insomnia from September 2023 to March 2024 after which the tragedy happened.

On March 6, Qu administered nearly 1,300 mg of propofol to Chen, distributing in more than 20 doses.

The doctor administered the doses through the ankle of Chen for more than six hours from 11 pm to 5 am.

The boyfriend also left an additional 100 mg of propofol for his girlfriend to use on her own while he was leaving in the morning. When he came back, he found Chen had died.

Also Read:Chennai doctor stabbed 7 times by son of cancer patient for allegedly prescribing wrong medications

In a medical examination, the cause of death was found to be acute propofol intoxication.

Qu instantly called the police and confessed his actions and later compensated the relatives of Chen with 400,000 yuan (US$55,000) and sought forgiveness.

The People’s Court of Renshou County on November 1 pronounced two and a half years of imprisonment for Qu for negligent homicide.

However, later court acknowledged the confession and self-surrender of Qu and the compensation he gave to the victim’s family. The family gave forgiveness to the man which led to leniency of his sentence.

Here's how netizens reacted to the incident

The leniency in the man's penalty was strongly criticised online.

“An anesthesiologist does not know the proper dosage for anaesthetic drugs? Is this negligence? Is this not murder?” said a user.

“More than 20 injections in six hours. How did he manage to get so much anaesthetic out of the hospital? Should the hospital not also be held responsible?” wrote another user.

“Negligent homicide plus a confession and compensation equals only 2.5 years?” commented a third user.

(With inputs from agencies)