Netflix’s “The Good Nurse,” tells the story of the serial killer Charles Cullen through the eyes of Amy Loughren who works in the critical care unit at Parkfield Memorial Hospital along with Charles.
In the film, it all started when Ana Martinez, one of the patients in the critical care unit died unexpectedly and the hospital ends up involving two detectives Tim Braun & Danny Baldwin to investigate what might have happened.
As the investigation progresses, another patient named Kelly Anderson dies too. The film then moves through the eyes of Amy who teams up with the detectives. If you are curious about whether Ana & Kelly were real patients who died, then you’re at the right place.
Are Ana Martinez and Kelly Anderson Based on Real Patients?
They are not the real patients who died because of Charles Cullen, Krysty Wilson-Cairns, the writer of the film emphasized not victimizing the victims again and wanted to avoid the real identities of those patients since many of their families are still alive.
However, there are quite some understatements as well. In the film, Ana’s death is what causes the hospital for involving the detectives but in reality, by the time the detectives were involved five deaths had already happened in the hospital with the addition of one patient showing life-threatening symptoms.
The exhumation of Kelly’s body to perform an autopsy did happen in real, by the detectives and when Braun and Baldwin showed her the records of medicines Cullen withdrew from pyxis, she became suspicious of Cullen.
While the film focussed on these two deaths of Kelly & Ana, Cullen at least killed thirteen patients in Somerset. As mentioned by Graeber in his book, “Charlie never knew how many he did at Somerset”.