Anjo da Morte

NEW YORK (AFP) - He is a two-year-old cat and looks innocent enough. But at the nursing home where he lives in the US state of Rhode Island, Oscar has developed a reputation as an angel of death.

Since being adopted as a kitten by staff at the advanced dementia unit of Providence's Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, Oscar has revealed a rather morbid tendency to pick which patient is going to die next.

According to David Dosa, a geriatrician at Rhode Island Hospital in Providence, Oscar makes regular rounds, looking in on patients and giving them a quick sniff, before either moving on or settling down for a cuddle.

So accurate have his predictions been, that as soon as the white and tabby harbinger of death curls up with one of the patients, staff immediately start summoning family and clergy to the soon-to-be deathbed.

"No one dies on the third floor unless Oscar pays a visit and stays awhile," Dosa wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine.

"His mere presence at the bedside is viewed by physicians and nursing home staff as an almost absolute indicator of impending death, allowing staff members to adequately notify families," he added.

"Thus far, he has presided over the deaths of more than 25 residents."

Dosa did not offer any explanation for Oscar's uncanny powers of prognostication, which patients were not yet believed to have spotted.


Copiada da matéria original Could hospital cat be angel of death.
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