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| Doctor and Two Nurses Charged In Katrina Euthanasias |
| 2006-07-19 |
| A doctor and two nurses who labored at a sweltering, flooded-out hospital in Hurricane Katrina's chaotic aftermath were arrested and accused Tuesday of murdering four trapped and desperately ill patients with injections of morphine and sedatives. "We're talking about people that pretended that maybe they were God," Louisiana Attorney General Charles C. Foti said. "And they made that decision." The defendants were booked on charges of being "principals to second-degree murder," which carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison. The three were the first medical professionals charged in a monthslong criminal investigation into whether many of New Orleans' sick and elderly were abandoned or put out of their misery in the days after the storm. Dr. Anna Pou, a cancer and ear, nose and throat specialist, and the two nurses were accused of deliberately killing four patients, ages 62 to 90, at Memorial Medical Center with a "lethal cocktail" of morphine and Versed. The patients' names were not released. "There may be more arrests and victims that cannot be mentioned at this time," Foti said. "This case is not over yet." He planned to turn the case over to the New Orleans district attorney, who will decide whether to ask a grand jury to bring charges. Memorial Medical had been cut off by flooding after the Aug. 29 hurricane swamped New Orleans. Power was knocked out in the 317-bed hospital and the temperature inside rose over 100 degrees as the staff tried to tend to patients who waited four days to be evacuated. In court papers, state investigators said Pou told a nurse executive three days after the hurricane that the patients still awaiting evacuation would probably not survive and that a "decision had been made to administer lethal doses" to them. Overdoses of morphine or Versed can stop the heart and lungs. Foti, however, said he believed the patients would have lived through the storm's aftermath. "This is not euthanasia. This is homicide," the attorney general said... |
| Posted by:Anonymoose |
| #13 I wonder if the medical folks panicked because they were watching the news on the networks and figured it was a holocaust. Maybe they didn't realize it wasn't as out of control as that. |
| Posted by: WhiteCollarRedneck 2006-07-19 12:40 |
| #12 While you've got a good wad of spit going Steve, spit on the abortionists as well. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2006-07-19 12:27 |
| #11 God Bless You Steve White |
| Posted by: jay-dubya 2006-07-19 12:25 |
| #10 Hear, Hear, AoS! I applaud your stance. Truly what the Hypocratic Oath (sp?) is all about. Do NO harm, first and foremost. I draw the line too. Now, if you were manually operating the breathing machines (like glenmore stated) and you give out, that's one thing. But, to make the decision yourself, without telling/consulting the patient that you're about to OD them is murder in my mind. No one knew for sure what was happening, and a rescue 'copter could've shown up 5 mins. later. |
| Posted by: BA 2006-07-19 10:57 |
| #9 Sorry folks, I'm a doc (as some of you know) and I do critical care. I also take care of patients with ALS, terminal lung cancer and other end-stage diseases. Never, never, ever would I consider euthanasia, nor would I counsel same, nor would I do anything that would actively shorten the life of a patient. It's immoral. I distinguish between euthanasia and 'comfort care', in which, together with a patient, we stop trying to cure what is a hopeless situation and instead help a person be comfortable. Hospice care is noble and honorable, and it's not euthanasia. Hospice care is where we go when we recognize that all the resources in the world won't fix the underlying medical problem. Euthanasia is murder, pure and simple. And let me add this: what happened in the article wasn't even euthanasia. The patients didn't ask to be given these drugs, the doc and nurses made this decision on their own. They weren't looking to make the patients comfortable or to relieve suffering, they were just tired of taking care of them. I know two docs who stayed in New Orleans after Katrina. One was at Tulane, the other at Oschner. They and their compatriot docs, nurses and staff were heroes; they provided great medical care despite the extraordinary circumstances. Not a single one of them committed murder. The people cited in this story dishonored my profession, and I spit on them. There. |
| Posted by: Steve White 2006-07-19 10:43 |
| #8 I couldn't agree with your more phil_b. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2006-07-19 09:34 |
| #7 "Oh, in other words, you want to kill them off." Oh, in other words you want to kill off other people. Resources are finite. Decisions have to be made as to where to expend them. I have no time for people who characterize situations as absolutes and as a result condemn people who can be saved and contribute to society to death. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2006-07-19 09:21 |
| #6 Mike, There's a finite amount of medical resources. It's insufficient to keep everybody alive as long as possible. Right now, the decision of who to treat and who to leave untreated is decided by who has the most money available to fund the medical business. Whether that is the correct basis on which to make the decision is debatable. To take active steps to end life is another entirely. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2006-07-19 08:44 |
| #5 Katrina claims three more victims. They may well be guilty of a crime, but they are also three more people whose lives are destroyed by the storm. I don't know why they would have killed patients while rescue was underway, though there were situations prior to that where I might have found it the lesser of two evils (no power meant manually operating breathing machines - and watching people essentially strangle to death over a period of hours after you just couldn't physically go on pumping; a terminal sedative just doesn't seem like such a bad thing then.) I forget who said it, but 'if you tie your dog up in the yard and let him starve to death you go to jail, but if you take him to the vet to be put to sleep it's ok; if you take out the feeding tube and starve a person to death it's ok, but if you give them a terminal sedative you go to jail. |
| Posted by: glenmore 2006-07-19 08:44 |
| #4 Unfortunately, there are far too many (and one is too many, mind you) in the medical profession who seem to be more interested in euthenizing their patients in the name of "eficiency" and "cost effectiveness" and "quality of life" than in treating them. The Mrs. had the SeeBS news on last week, and there was this "medical ethics expert" decrying the high cost of treating premature babies and talking about how the resources could be better used elsewhere. My immediate reaction was, "Oh, in other words, you want to kill them off." |
| Posted by: Mike 2006-07-19 08:39 |
| #3 Here's a CNN transcript of an interview with a doctor who witnessed it. |
| Posted by: DanNY 2006-07-19 06:41 |
| #2 Bio and photo at link: http://www.medschool.lsuhsc.edu/faculty_affairs/new_faculty.asp |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2006-07-19 06:06 |
#1 "This is not euthanasia. This is homicide," the attorney general said...What do you think euthanasia IS? |
| Posted by: Korora 2006-07-19 00:25 |