Cash for corpses - the ambulances of Lodz.

Ambulances in Lodz are the scourge of the city. They terrorise with speeds of up to 120km per hour in city centres, they have unnecessarily and unbelievably loud sirens and horns which are on even in the middle of the night despite the streets being empty. They are very very aggressive and don't give a fuck who they wake up or knock down... their intention when driving is to oppress and to terrify.

Ambulance crews in Lodz (and apparently throughout Poland) had long been accepting bribes from funeral parlours to provide details of patients who had died. This went a step further when in 2002 it was discovered by a journalist for Poland's biggest newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza that ambulance crews were using the muscle relaxant drug Pavulon to speed up patients' deaths before tipping off the funeral businesses.

This practice was not limited to ambulance crews. Doctors on emergency wards in Lodz killed patients by lethal doses of a drug that causes asphyziation after the families of the victims had agreed to use particular funeral homes which then paid the doctors more than 300 dollars per corpse in return for the business.

No-one was charged with murder for lack of evidence. Two doctors were charged with 'failing to assist patients despite their condition.' Forty ambulance and funeral home employees were charged with bribery, most of whom got off and the remainder received minimal sentences.

Word of the week: Morderstwo meaning murder.