A nurse has been accused of contaminating saline drips and ampules routinely used to treat patients on two wards at Stepping Hill Hospital in Stockport with insulin.
Victorino Chua, aged 49, is on trial at Manchester Crown Court facing 36 charges relating to 21 patients, including three counts of murder. The offences are alleged to have happened at Stepping Hill Hospital, Stockport, in 2011 and 2012.
The trial continues.
A nurse accused of a string of poisonings at Stepping Hill Hospital in Stockport would deliberately leave contaminated saline bags in a different ward for other unsuspecting staff to administer to patients.
Hospital chiefs launched an "enormous" investigation after patients' medical notes were tampered with amid a series of mysterious insulin poisonings.
Prosecutor Peter Wright QC said as investigators put the pieces of the puzzle together, the person responsible "became clear" - and the finger was pointed at 49-year-old Victorino Chua, a male nurse from the Philippines who had been working on both affected wards.
At Manchester Crown Court, Mr Wright told the jury that when Chua's shifts took him from one ward to the other, the instances of poisoning moved with him.
He said Chua had the opportunity not just to administer the poison himself, but to leave contaminated bags "ticking away" on the ward for other staff to use unknowingly.
The motive for this, Mr Wright added, was difficult to determine as it was completely random - "a lottery" as to who was treated with a contaminated product and who was not.
Mr Chua, whose trial at Manchester Crown Court opened this morning, denies all thirty six charges. The case is expected to last for four months.
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