The patients died after being admitted to the accident and emergency department of the Severo Ochoa hospital in Leganés, a Madrid suburb. Most died within 24 hours of being admitted to A&E after being treated with the sedatives morphine, midazolam and tranxilium.

Luis Montes, 56, has been suspended as head of the department, where the death rate was three times higher than in similar clinics in Madrid, according to El Mundo, a daily newspaper. The hospital’s own investigations found that in at least 42 cases the amount of sedative administered was either not indicated, was excessive, or doubtful, according to El Mundo. Two senior medical officers have also been suspended.

Despite the public disquiet over events at the hospital, colleagues of Dr Montes have called for his reinstatement.

Dr Montes, who was known by hospital staff as Shining Path after the Peruvian Maoist guerrilla movement, has denied that he acted improperly.

The hospital had drawn up its own protocol in the case of terminally ill patients, which held that sedatives could be administered if sufferers were expected to live for only six more months or less. But last week the daughter of a man who went in for a routine examination for respiratory difficulty and died after being sedated, began legal proceedings, according to El Mundo, which has, because of what it called grave irregularities, demanded an urgent judicial inquiry into the affair.

“What’s in question is the defence of the patient’s rights and, in the ultimate instance, human life itself,” the newspaper said in an editorial.

“No doctor can take upon himself the right to decide between life and death and even less without the consent of the family of the patient.”

There had been no fatalities from misuse of sedatives since the suspension of Dr Montes, the newspaper said.

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