Netflix’s new true crime drama The Nurse has been setting pulses racing since it arrived on the streaming platform. Given the grisly nature of the chilling show, many fans have found themselves gingerly asking themselves: ‘Is this based on a true story?’
The Danish series is based on the book of the same name by Kristian Corfixen. His novel comes with the following synopsis: “In the early hours of March 1, 2015, Danish police received an alarming call from a nurse at a provincial hospital.”
Continuing: “She suspected her colleague, fellow nurse Christina Aistrup Hansen, of deliberately killing patients-and she feared it had just happened again. Soon, other coworkers revealed their own concerns about Hansen. Indeed, some had been harbouring suspicions about her for years . . .”
And as the final chapter of the synopsis concludes, this is all based on a grisly true story. Corfixen was the Danish journalist who investigated this case and chronicled his findings in the novel which then became the rather faithful series.
As the blurb adds: “So why had no one come forward sooner? And with the alleged victims already cremated, where was the evidence? Could this all be a case of small-town gossip snowballing out of control?”
Concluding: “Drawing on police and autopsy reports, medical records, private correspondence, and testimony from key witnesses-as well as Hansen herself-Danish journalist Kristian Corfixen reconstructs the fateful night shift in which three patients died under mysterious circumstances, and the sensational trial it set in motion.”
Naturally, this intrigued the director Kasper Barfoed who told Netflix: “What really most of all interested me [was], ‘How could this take place over such a long time — when, after the whole thing was revealed, a lot of people seemed to have known about it or suspected it?'”
Adding: “That became the key we always went back to. It’s not about just a ‘crazy’ killer — it’s about, ‘How does the system prevent us from speaking up or how does the system protect itself?'”
