The Good Nurse: the true story of the angel of death

Currently, Charles Cullen is 62 years old and serving time in New Jersey State Prison. He will not have the right to parole until the year 2403. As expected, it is very difficult for him to one day cross the limits of the enclosure he inhabits right now. Because behind his back, he is charged with the confirmed deaths of 29 people, although it is stipulated that he murdered many more.

They call him the “angel of death” because between 1988 and 2003, This nurse left behind a whole train of silent murders in the various hospitals. He injected insulin and digoxin, turned off ventilators and changed medications in order to bring closure to someone who, in his opinion, was suffering excessively.

Because Cullen, as he himself explained, wanted to relieve his patients’ pain. However, Nor were their deaths sweet, nor were all those whose lives were taken from them in a terminal phase.. Many were simply recovering from an intervention or an illness that was not excessively serious. He didn’t murder out of mercy, he murdered out of compulsion and a mental disorder that no one detected.

His story has been brought to Netflix under the title The Good Nurse. It is an adaptation of the book The Good Nurse: A True Story of Medicine, Madness, and Murder, by Charles Graeber. In this production a fact is put on the table that continues to raise great concern…

How could Cullen murder so many people over 16 years and in nine different hospitals without arousing suspicion?

Charles Cullen was sentenced to 11 life sentences. Throughout his life, he attempted suicide several times and was admitted to psychiatric hospitals.

Who was Charles Cullen?

When the viewer enters The Good Nurse He is quickly captured by Eddie Redmayne’s portrayal of Charles Cullen. His movements are precise, there is something cold and at the same time hypnotic about the character. He has some pampering, his hands tremble, which, like an insect, contaminates the IVs and drippers of his patients with insulin.

It is almost inevitable to remember Norman Bates with his lean, helpful figure, but with that look that undoubtedly borders on the precipice of mental illness. The truth is that we know a lot about the life of this nurse who was murdering with total impunity in the privacy of hospitals.

That reserved, thin and shy boy did not have an easy life. Thus, as always happens in the gestation of monsters, The first years of childhood are usually decisive. His mother had to make great efforts to raise her eight children alone. He was the youngest of a group of brothers who dealt with drugs and dysfunctional and problematic dynamics.

When Cullen was in high school, His mother had an epileptic seizure and died in a traffic accident.. That left him devastated and he tried to take his own life. That was the first time that he spent time in a psychiatric institution, although it would not be the last. When he recovered he made a drastic decision: enlist in the United States Navy…

From the missile room to the hospital wards

Young Charles Cullen served aboard the submarine USS Woodrow Wilson in the 80s. Although that life was not easy for him. He could not adapt and was subjected to numerous hazings. His behavior was also erratic and strange, to the point that officers found him on one occasion, wearing an apron and a surgical mask in the ship’s missile control room.

After a new suicide attempt, he was discharged medically in 1984 and expelled from the Navy.. She then enrolled at the Mountainside School of Nursing in New Jersey. Four years later, he would commit his first murder in the hospital where he began working, San Barnabas. The angel of death had just spread his wings and would begin a rugged journey that would last 16 years…

Charles Cullen was admitted to psychiatric hospitals several times, but this was not a problem for him to continue working as a nurse.

The Good Nursea story about indignity

The Good Nurse It starts with the real events that happened with the last medical center where Cullen was before his arrest. It is there where He met Amy Loughren, another nurse who, as a single mother of two, suffered from a heart condition and also lacked health insurance. The hospital itself did not provide it to him until he had worked there for a year.

That nuance was a point of union between the angel of death and Amy herself, played in the film by Jessica Chastain. Charles promises to help her get her insurance, but in the meantime, he doesn’t hesitate to steal her medication.. This is how the nurse discovers how her partner is able to hack MedStation, the system that regulates drug administration.

Little by little he is also aware of how the inexplicable and sudden death of several patients is linked to certain drugs. Those that his partner steals on a regular basis. When he finally informs the police of what happened, Loughren becomes that key piece for Cullen’s investigation and imprisonment.

Failed medical institutions and deaths that were not investigated

Charles Cullen is suspected of murdering nearly 400 patients. However, he only admitted to 40 and was tried for 29 deaths. The obvious question is how did he not attract attention during 16 years of murders? The truth is that many did suspect what he was carrying out, but he always opted for dismissal rather than exposing the mismanagement of a hospital.

The Good Nurse denounces the indignity of medical institutions and the helplessness of patients. In this production we witness something that was undoubtedly real: deaths that were not investigated and dozens of grieving families seeking justice. Charles Cullen was reported more than once for stealing medicines and although many knew of his mental problems and suicide attempts, no one reacted.

His medical history of mental instability did not matter. Nor did the number of deaths that he left behind in different hospitals raise suspicion. She never lacked work, until, finally, another colleague had enough cunning, sensitivity and courage to stop her actions.