A nurse accused of murdering two patients at a Ballina nursing home will face a trial lasting six to eight weeks in Lismore. Megan Jean Haines, 47, appeared in Sydney Supreme Court via video-link from Silverwater Women’s Correctional Centre. She is charged with killing Isobella Spencer, 77, and Marie Darragh, 82, by injecting them with fatal doses of insulin at the St Andrew’s Village nursing home in Ballina. Both women had advanced care directives against resuscitation and died in Ballina District Hospital after being found unconscious in their beds on May 10, 2014. Ms Haines was arrested almost a month later in Seaspray, Victoria, and extradited to New South Wales. NSW Supreme Court Justice Peter Johnson heard there would be “a lot of nurses and people called in relation to the management of the hospital” for the defence when the case finally went to trial. Ms Haines’s scheduled arraignment was postponed until May 6, before a trial beginning on October 10 in Lismore.
