Today, a German Court sentenced a nurse, who had worked aboard a cruise ship as a doctor, to three years in jail.
News agency dpa reported that the Berlin state court convicted the nurse of "bodily harm, fraud, abuse of titles and deprivation of liberty." The latter charge referred to the fact that he put 41 patients under anesthetic, apparently before he began fraudulently working aboard a cruise ship.
ABC News said that the court found that the 41-year-old nurse claimed to be a doctor for five years starting in 2010, using a forged medical license, to enhance his status and because doctors earn more money. At one point, he worked for 10 months on a cruise ship.
We first mentioned the nurse’s arrest last year. A number of readers said that the man worked aboard the Aidavita, although the U.S. newspapers did not mention the name of the cruise line or cruise ship.
The cruise line obviously did not conduct a thorough pre-employment background check. Carnival-owned Aida Cruises offered no explanation why it hired someone with no medical school education or experience.
This raises the issue whether adequate background checks were performed on other cruise employees.
Photo Credit: CC BY-SA 2.5
Update: A reader sent an article from a German newspaper titled: Falscher Arzt behandelte unzählige Aida-Gäste ("Wrong doctor treated countless on Aida guests"). The article says that the imposter doctor (identified as "Denny H.") obtained a position at the German Organ Transplantation Foundation. Later, he worked as a ship doctor for AIDA for ten months and was involved in about 1300 treatments; in 21 of the cases he performed injections or infusions.