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Police probing deaths of 7 elderly patients in Toyama

IMIZU, Japan - Hidetsugu Asanoi, head of the Imizu City Hospital in Toyama Prefecture, speaks at a press conference on March 25 after police began investigating the deaths of seven cancer patients from 2000 to 2005 at the hospital as cases of possible murder. The patients died after the hospital's surgery department head removed their respirators, the city government and the police said. Asanoi quoted the 50-year-old surgeon as saying he had removed respirators of the seven in their 50s to 90s with consent from their families but without consent from the patients themselves. (Kyodo)