Doctor 300 Deaths [PHOTO]: Brazilian Physician Virginia Soares de Souza Charged with 7 Murders, May Have Killed Hundreds More to Free Up Hospital Beds

According to Brazil's Health Ministry, Dr. Virginia Soares de Souza, who was charged last month with killing seven patients in order to free up hospital intensive care unit beds, could be responsible for up to 300 deaths. Dr. de Souza and her medical team allegedly used muscle-relaxing drug on patients and then reduced their oxygen supply, which caused the victim to asphyxiate and die. These deaths occurred at the Evangelical Hospital in the city of Curitiba.

The 56-year-old doctor, a widow, was arrested and charged with seven counts of aggravated first degree murder along with three other doctors, three nurses and a physiotherapist who worked under her. Evidence leading to her arrest were a result of wiretaps on de Souza's phone, revealing her motive.

"I want to clear the intensive care unit. It's making me itch," the doctor said in a recording released to Brazilian media. "Unfortunately, our mission is to be go-betweens on the springboard to the next life."

Elias Mattar Asad, de Souza's lawyer, said that investigators simply do not know how an intensive care unit works and hopes to prove her innocence. But more cases are expected to surface with investigators examining 1,700 medical records from the last 7 years of patients who died under de Souza's reign over the intensive care unit.

"We already have more than 20 cases established, and there are nearly 300 more that we are looking into," chief investigator assigned Dr. Mario Lobato said on Sunday.

According to Lobato, the deaths that he had reviewed were similar in that a muscle relaxant was administered, which increased the patients' need for artificial respiration.  The oxygen supply was then reduced leading to death by asphyxia.

If de Souza is proven guilty of killing these 300 patients, this could turn out being on of the world's worst serial killings. It would trump the notorious case of Harold Shipman who was an English doctor who killed at least 215 patients.