3 arrested in New Orleans hospital deaths

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NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- A doctor and two nurses who worked through the chaos that followed Hurricane Katrina were arrested overnight, accused of giving four patients stranded at their hospital lethal doses of morphine and a sedative, authorities said Tuesday.

The arrest warrants say that Dr. Anna Pou and the two nurses intentionally killed four patients at Memorial Medical Center "by administering or causing to be administered lethal doses of morphine sulphate (morphine) and midazolam (Versed)."

Foti had subpoenaed more than 70 people last fall in an investigation into rumors that medical personnel at Memorial Medical Center had euthanized patients who were in pain after the hurricane as they waited in miserable conditions for rescue.

Angela McManus said Tuesday that her 70-year-old mother was among the patients who died at Memorial. Her mother had been recovering from a blood infection but seemed fine and was still able to speak when police demanded relatives of the ill evacuate. She died later that day, McManus said.

"At least now I'll be able to get some answers," McManus said. "For months, I haven't known what happened to my mom. I need some answers just to be able to function."

If this is true and if they have evidence, this is terrible. Commenting only on the quote by Angela McManus, I cannot see where there would be any justifiable reason to end her mother's life.

OTOH, if the doc isn't guilty, I would imagine that he would have one heck of a lawsuit on his hands for ruining his reputation.

Sad if it's true.

JDub

Probably will bounce right through the media and vanish, reminds me alot of the recent debacle here in NC, men and women categorized as 'undesirables' were sterilized without their knowlege or consent, and nobody did or even really said a damned thing about it. I guess these patients were undesirables as well, makes you wonder what bastard sits around making lists of 'undesirables'.

ABC News
From the early 1900s to the 1970s, some 65,000 men and women were sterilized in this country, many without their knowledge, as part of a government eugenics program to keep so-called undesirables from reproducing.

Twitchy -

If you are referring to the mental health system sterilyzing (sp? I'm tired and can't think) people against their will, I have seen and heard several stories over my years about it. The people that started it or did it always said they had the people's best interest at heart but it was pretty barbaric what they put the retarded and handicapped through.

It is my understanding that those people institutionalized didn't have any say of their health "treatment" and neither did their families, if they had families at all.

I have mixed emotions about assisted suicide but I am definitely against forced euthanasia.

cheers,

JDub

I remember reading about the euthanasia's during the crisis, and people on another board were justifying and excusing it as probable mercy in extreme circumstances. What would you do under the same circumstances?

I don't understand why there isn't more outcry about the lack of response and help sent to the area when needed. That's the true unquestionable crime. To have the resources and withhold them. Canadians were the first team into New Orleans, into St Barnabus.

People don't like to look on suffering or have to share in it. Sterilizing undesirables is how Hitler got started with his euthanasia program. Ironic that it's the suffering of 'undesirables' that lends society its compassion.

Where they going to die anyways and the doctors simple decided they had no chance so they moved on to other people? I think the media might be a little to quick to accuse them and declare they are quilty of murder. If the patients had absolutly no chance and where humanly killed then I see no crime as it was in a crisis senario.

Ok, I've been thinking about how to respond to this fairly. Unfortunately, the legalities prevent me from saying that it is ok according to the law. However, this is something that I feel should be brought as high as the State Supreme Court to decide upon. I don't know how I feel about this being a law allowing it, because I find it unacceptable to allow these situations to occur again.

It's hard to explain, and I don't want to sound elitist, as if I know better than anyone else. That is not my intention. It just takes some understanding of the situation that was being faced. As far as I can see when I pass by, there was about 6-ish feet of water around the area of the building. So we can pretty much assume that the downstairs would not have been easily utilized as an exit. However, there was an upstairs for an airlift.

Now let's go to helicopter rescues as far as hospitals were concerned. Another hospital had a large group of heroes in their midst (the doctors of Tulane Hospital). Directly across the street was Charity Hospital. This is where a problem occurred. If it wasn't for the doctors of Tulane refusing to board the helicopters, the patients remaining from Charity (the lesser affluent of the two), would not have been boarded because the helicopters weren't going to come back for them.

Operating under this, Memorial Hospital (another less affluent hospital) was more than likely not recieving as much attention either. How long before helicopters fly over again and again without helping you does it take before you give up hope? How long before you decide that the patients in that hospital were going to die suffering as much as those that died in the Superdome and Convention Center from lack of medical care? Remember no generators, no exit. No hope. Do you think these doctors did this with a smile? As if it was a fun thing to do?

I would also like to add that Ms. McManus is quoted as saying that the mother "seemed fine" according to the police. Seemed fine on the outside is absolutely no indication of what may have been going on with this woman. The police officers have no medical training to that extent (they don't, I personally have seen an incident where they didn't even know how to prevent a victim from going into shock until I intervened).

I am sorry for her loss, as well as the losses of others who lost loved ones during those horrific days. However, I wonder how furious they would have been to find out months later that their loved ones died suffering over days and days like others did in the filthy confines of the Superdome and the Convention Center. This situation will hopefully never happen the same way again. Never. I however do believe in the light of everything that occurred this time, the deaths were indeed merciful. I however don't believe that this should be incorporated into our laws because there should be no reason for it in the future if people are prepared as they should be.

With ending this, I am going to admit to the fact that I am not willing to provide media sources for some of the events that I mentioned in my response. They are there if you want to look for them, and have the know how for a search engine, but I am not able to just browse through these stories and add more PTSD to the already existing PTSD. Sorry, I'm just giving my thoughts, I'm not going to put myself back into those days to source what happened as of yet.

Niteboy82 -

Thank you for adding to this story a little bit from the human perspective. I am sorry you had to see what you did.

I tried to put the caveat "if" on my original posting because I don't know that stuff to be true. I hope that it isn't.

I know what you are saying about the girl's mother seeming fine and yet she could have had major problems that were hidden or undeveloped yet.

Sorry, Mate.

JDub

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Dr. Ben deBoisblanc, director of critical care at Charity Hospital, said he and others are angry at the accusations against a doctor and nurses who risked their own safety, and provided care in a chaotic and frightening situation.

"This doctor and these nurses were heroes. They stayed behind of their own volition to care for desperately ill people. They had an opportunity to leave and chose not to," he said.

Memorial Medical was swamped with 10 feet of water and isolated by Katrina's flooding. The 317-bed hospital had no electricity and the temperature inside rose over 100 degrees as the staff tried to tend to patients who waited four days to be evacuated.

Pou, Landry and Budo 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.

Under such conditions, even patients who might have been able to walk or were relatively stable before Katrina could easily have lapsed into critical condition, doctors say.

"It's very easy for a relatively healthy person to go down quickly," said Dr. Daniel Nuss, Pou's department head at Louisiana State University, where Pou has given up clinical duties until the case is resolved.

Ooh, this is gonna get sticky. With some of the medical community jumping in on the side of the doctor and nurses, the state has its work cut out for itself to prove that the medical staff overstepped their bounds.

JDub