3 Arrested in Katrina Hospital Deaths (Memorial Hosp Mercy Killings)

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/07/18/D8IUDLP80.html

A doctor and two nurses have been arrested in connection with the deaths of patients at a New Orleans hospital after Hurricane Katrina hit the city, the Louisiana attorney general's office said Tuesday.

The three were arrested late Monday and booked on suspicion of second- degree murder, said Kris Wartelle, a spokeswoman for Attorney General Charles C. Foti.

Memorial Medical Center was cut off by flood water in the immediate aftermath of the Aug. 29 hurricane. Power went out and the temperature inside the building rose over 100 degrees as patients waited four days to be evacuated.

At least 34 patients died at Memorial during that time, 10 of them patients of the hospital's owner Dallas-based Tenet Healthcare Corp. and 24 patients in a facility run by LifeCare Holdings Inc., a separate company.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/07/18/hospital.deaths/index.html

A doctor and two nurses were charged with second-degree murder Tuesday after Louisiana's attorney general launched an extensive investigation to uncover whether hospital staff euthanized some patients after Hurricane Katrina hit, a source close to the case told CNN.

Late Monday, Dr. Anna Pou, Lori L. Budo and Cheri Landry were arrested in connection with the alleged deliberate deaths of some patients at New Orleans Memorial Medical Center after Hurricane Katrina hit, a source close to the investigation told CNN.

The three were booked and released around midnight, jail officials said.

Further details of the arrests and investigation into the alleged deliberate deaths at New Orleans Memorial Medical Center are expected to be disclosed by Louisiana's attorney general Charles Foti, Jr. at a news conference Tuesday afternoon.

[mod mom]

1. Bush and Chertoff should be the ones arrested for the deaths. This is

appalling!

[bullimiami]

2. letting them die slowly is preferable. in fact, abandoning them to suffer

and die is government policy.

[pitohui]

20. next time if you're dying in horrendous pain they'll deny your morphine

it is already all too common for doctors in new orleans to deny morphine to dying patients and to leave them screaming in pain, happened to a friend's father when he was dying of stomach cancer, it is a story to chill your blood


if it isn't the DEA on your ass for "over" prescribing morphine then it's this -- who would take a chance and relieve pain under these circumstances if you're going to be accused of murder

even if the women targeted are acquitted they will be destroyed financially paying for the defense lawyers

this is why too many doctors around here won't give pain medicine even to those in terrible pain and you're thrown on the mercy of dubious pain clinics that cater to drug addicts

[long_green]

3. to charge these three women with second-degree murder

while the New Orleans DA cannot get indictments on career criminals who kill people in front of witnesses...yeesh (I know these charges come from a different office).
These women did not make the decisions they made from motives of malice or profit. Some of the people who were too sick to move were going to die in those conditions anyway. Oh well, chalk up three more for our culture of life.

[rainbow4321]

13. Will make nurses think twice before heading to these areas

The hospital-owned agency that I work for always asks their nurses at the beginning of each hurricane season if they want to sign up to be part of a team to go to hospitals in hurricane hit areas if staffing is needed. Once you sign up and the agency does all the necessary paperwork, you're obligated to go.

Now how many nurses and other health care people are going to think twice before signing up from now on? As if hearing the horror stories of staff and patients not being rescued was not bad enough, now they would have to look forward to possible criminal charges and their life/death decisions being second guessed after the fact.

[Lars39]

4. They were all left there to die.

These women are being scapegoated.

[hlthe2b]

5. Absolutely...this is a travesty.

[LostinVA]

10. The two nurses and several EMTs in my family agree with you

EVERYONE has said that, given the choice between allowing a patient to die a slow, agonizing death, or helping them go peacefully, they ALL would chose the latter. If this indeed what happened. I know some on DU claiming to be nurses called these people murderers, etc., but I think I'll go with the opinion of a very diverse set of family members: white, hispanic, middle-class, poor, Freeper, Progressive, Moderate, Catholic, Methodist, Baptist, male, female, young, old, Mid-Atlantic, Mid-Western, Southern.

[cally]

6. this should never have been investigated

and they shouldn't be charged. They were acting to ease suffering after the country had abandoned them and their patients. If help had arrived, then they wouldn't have acted.

[shance]

7. More scapegoats and patsies for the Bushes and Cheneys.

It's sickening to watch doing what they think is best in an unprecedented crisis, versus those who are essentially creating such a crisis, sitting back and watching the deaths accumulate and inexplicably doing nothing.

Tell me who is to blame. Not these individuals.

However, they're all too expendable to this Administration.

[badgerpup]

8. Oh, I dunno...

Drowning is so much more moral than dying quietly, peacefully, and painlessly from a morphine overdose, don't you think?
:sarcasm:

[Misskittycat]

9. This is so BS. n/t

[Delphinus]

11. There had better be a huge moral outcry on this. n/t

[iverglas]

12. some background info

The report of this event was discussed at length at DU when it first emerged in the days after Katrina hit. Many refused to believe it, and the reasons given by the medical professionals allegedly involved for what they were reported to have done.

Link to a thread on the story:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=1772316
"Patients put down (Euthanasia in New Orleans)"

A layperson who was assisting the medical staff in the hospital seems to have been the first to tell the story, to his family in England and to families of the patients in question -- by way of assuring them that their relatives did not suffer.

A story linked to in that earlier thread reported what some families of the patients in question said:

Their families believe their confessions are an indictment of the appalling failure of US authorities to help those in desperate need after Hurricane Katrina flooded the city, claiming thousands of lives and making 500,000 homeless.

One reason they apparently had to make this choice was that they did not have access to the hospital's pharmacy, which had been locked down because of violent individuals and gangs engaged in looting for drugs. This left them with a supply of morphine that could have relieved their patients' horrific pain only for a couple of days at most -- and they had no expectations of being rescued from the situation by that time. They chose to use the morphine to assist in the patients' deaths, which were in all cases inevitable even had the hurricane not occurred. Good for them, I said then and I say now.

This situation was of course a direct result of governments' complete failure to take appropriate action in a timely manner to help the people who had suffered the immediate and direct effects of the hurricane and were in desperate need of basic things like food and water -- and also security. They were simply left to suffer the foreseeable secondary effects of losing all the normal infrastructure of a community that keeps people safe -- police, streetlights, public buildings, neighbours, roads, sidewalks, telephones, their own homes -- that protect them from the violent and lawless element that exists in any community and takes the opportunities presented to victimize others in a variety of ways.

It was obvious at the time that the conditions in this hospital, like conditions all over the region, were horrific, and some people were having to make the kinds of decisions and do the kinds of things that no one would ever want to do and no one should ever have to do -- but that they were doing what they felt morally bound to do, even if it appeared to be technically contrary to their professional ethics. That conflict arises, in fact, for any health professional faced with the implacable suffering vs. assisted dying scenario.

I too hope that this travesty is rejected by the people of New Orleans, and the US as a whole. For a society to blame the people whom it left to their own devices, to do jobs that it was impossible to do, and who did what they could despite the risks to their own safety and well-being, in fact, is just another link in the chain of victimization.

[heliarc]

19. Thank you for the additional information

The oral History is going to be very important given what we can guess the official history will be.

I'm also of the understanding that there was a contractor at fault. Weren't some absurdly high percentage of the Nursing Facilities in New Orleans covered by one contractor to either bus or Chopper out inpatients in the event of a disaster? In the end I heard something about the contractor having no where near the capability to evacuate all of the nursing homes it insured it could... Anyone know more about the history of this? What the contractor's name was?

[shireen]

14. an opportunity to showcase our government (at all levels) at work

I don't think any of us know the real story behind these charges, but I suspect that these medical caregivers acted out of compassion.

If anything at all their trial will bring out a lot of the ugly truth of what happened in that hospital, and all over NOLA. I hope people will put themselves in the place of these women, and wonder what they would have done in those circumstances.

It amazes me that the rest of the country is not more angry about what happened last August/September. What happened there was utterly horrific, and that incredible city is still very vulnerable. Maybe the reason that reconstruction is moving so slowly is because the Bush admin. is waiting for another hurricane to finish the job.

[Ilsa]

15. As a nurse, I never thought I would have to die in order to avoid

abandoning a patient. Even Good Samaritans are afforded more protection than that. The alternatives for these medical professionals' patients were either death or death. (Pick one, DimSon.)

I wonder what impact this will have on emergency depts in the future when a major hurricane or other storm is ooming? Will doctors refuse to accept patients that are chronically or critically ill, telling them to go further inland?

The Administration and FEMA should be charged with murder. And these three should sue them for defamation of their character from neglect, and damages caused by the trauma they all experienced.

"Culture of Life." What horseshit.

[hedgehog]

16. I remember hearing about this on NPR a few months back

If I recall properly, several days after the hurricane these people still had not been contacted (I mean, why would authorites two or three miles away try to contact a major hospital to see what was needed?) and they were in big trouble. No food, no water, and no idea what was happening around them. I can't remember the exact circumstances, but I think it was a case of ensuring a quiet death for these patients before the remaining staff attempted to find a way to safety. The worst part is, all of these patients were dying, but at least one could have been alive and alert for several more weeks given proper care.

Keckuva job, Brownie!

[daleo]

17. Arrest Bush for Katrina deaths. n/t

[Bark Bark Bark]

18. Have They Even Finished Collecting The Bodies Yet?

How many people died on an overpass or in the Superdome, turned away at gunpoint by neighboring towns, while waiting for help...while Bush and Co vacationed and played "Me The Leader" for the cameras?

Fine. Let it go to trial. In the end, once the story has been picked apart in detail, I doubt they'll be convicted, and it'll be phenomenal publicity for keeping public focus on one of Bush's massive failures (even as others pile up daily).

But we have to do our part to make sure that focus is maintained. ...And if I'm wrong, and they ARE convicted, we need to be ready to act on that as well.

[Jacobin]

21. This is SO wrong

They had no water, for crying out loud. The staff was giving themselves IVs of liquid to stay alive themselves.

100 plus degree heat, no food, no water, no hope of rescue for days and days and days, if not weeks.

This DA is a fucking loser