VietNamNet Bridge – Staff of the General Hospital of Phu Yen Province are very upset that a doctor and a nurse were forced to be involved in lethal injection.

First death row inmate executed by lethal injection

170 prisoners awaiting lethal injection

The General Hospital of Phu Yen Province.

A young doctor named L.C.T who has worked at the hospital for only four months and a nurse named N.N.T were still haunted because this was the first time in their lives they had to do something contrary to professional ethics.

"The task of doctors is to save people, not to kill prisoners by poison," said doctor L.C.T.

According to doctor L.C.T, in the afternoon of December 9, he and nurse N.N.T were assigned to help a working group of the law enforcement force of Phu Yen province.

"We just thought that our mission was to ensure good health for members of the working group. However, when we arrived in Dak Lak Province, the working group told us that our task was to locate the vein of a death row inmate and to put a needle into it for the staff of the law enforcement force to inject poison," Dr. L.C.T said.

"I was shocked and flatly refused that task. I kept refusing it on the morning of December 11 but finally I had to support the nurse to put a needle into the vein of the prisoner to implement the death penalty at the urgent request of the law enforcement council," the doctor said.

Dr. Nguyen Thanh Truc, Director of Phu Yen General Hospital said: "If we knew that mission in advance, we would have reported it to the Department of Health before joining the mission because this had never happened."

The representative of the law enforcement council of Phu Yen Province People's Court – Mr. Nguyen Phi Do said that the assistance of doctors in performing lethal injection is stipulated in the Joint Circular No. 05/2013 of the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Public Security, Ministry of Defense, the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People’s Procuracy.

This was the first death penalty implemented by lethal injection in Phu Yen province, which was held in Dak Lak province.

On December 9, the Law Enforcement Council of Phu Yen Province took prisoner Nguyen Thanh Khau, 33, from the Prison of Phu Yen Police to the Prison of Dak Lak Police to conduct the death penalty. Khau was a murder, a child rapist and a robber.

On December 11, the Council asked a doctor and a nurse of the Phu Yen General Hospital to locate the vein of the death row inmate and put a needle into the vein for the council staff to inject poison.

Tram Tran