Nurses and doctor acted as God during Katrina...

[EsoCyn]

http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/07/18/ho...ths/index.html

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- In the desperate days after hurricane Katrina struck, a doctor and two nurses at a flooded New Orleans hospital allegedly killed four patients by giving them a lethal drug cocktail, Louisiana's top law enforcement official said Tuesday.

"We're talking about people that pretended that maybe they were God," Attorney General Charles C. Foti Jr. said, announcing second-degree murder charges against Dr. Anna Pou, Lori L. Budo and Cheri Landry.

"This is not euthanasia. It's homicide," Foti said. (Watch how a mercy killing probe led to murder charges -- 1:41)

The charges stem from the post-Katrina deaths of some patients at New Orleans Memorial Medical Center.

An affidavit said tests determined that a lethal amount of morphine was administered on September 1 to four patients ages 62, 66, 89 and 90. Hurricane Katrina swamped the city on August 28.

[Petra]

Jeez, that's sad.

[LadyShea]

I don't know that we have enough facts to determine it wasn't euthanasia. These patients were in a hospital with no electricity, no air conditioning (IIRC the generators stopped working), no immediate rescue attempt and they had no way of contacting anybody to see if help was on the way. Depending on their illnesses, they may have been in agony or had their respirators or feeding machines not working.

I am not going to jump the gun until I know what the evidence is and say these medical professionals weren't acting in a merciful capacity to relieve suffering or even at the patients request.

[EsoCyn]

This is certainly a very torn up issue. On one hand, it's not as if the nurses and the doctor was acting out of malicious intent. If these people were invalids, then perhaps it was helping them from what would've been extremely deteriorated conditions that could've lead to a horrible death. Instead, the doc gave them an OD of Morphine.

It's going to be really sad to see what comes of this trial. I'm pretty sure there will be plenty of demonizing from religious types.

[EsoCyn]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

I don't know that we have enough facts to determine it wasn't euthanasia. These patients were in a hospital with no electricity, no air conditioning (IIRC the generators stopped working), no immediate rescue attempt and they had no way of contacting anybody to see if help was on the way. Depending on their illnesses, they may have been in agony or had their respirators or feeding machines not working.

I am not going to jump the gun until I know what the evidence is and say these medical professionals weren't acting in a merciful capacity to relieve suffering or even at the patients request.

Pretty much how I feel right now.

[Petra]

I don't know the facts, I'm just assuming these doctors/nurses euthanised those patients 'with love', as opposed to malice. They were in some pretty dire circumstances, and my heart goes out to them.

[EsoCyn]

Here's the transcript from the Andersoon Cooper 360 Show back in December, pertaining to the allegations;

We begin now with new details, new allegations in CNN's continuing investigation into whether medical professionals may have resorted to euthanasia at a New Orleans hospital in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

If you recall, just after the storm, there were hundreds of deaths at hospitals and nursing homes. All of these are being investigated by Louisiana authorities. Among those, one investigation has focused on allegations patients were intentionally killed at Memorial Hospital. And now CNN has learned more than one medical professional is under scrutiny as a possible person of interest in that investigation.

Drew Griffin has the exclusive report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DREW GRIFFIN, CNN INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Memorial Hospital had been a storm refuge for up to 2,000 people. Patients, staff and their families rode out the storm inside.

But, by Thursday, four days after Katrina, despair was setting in. The hospital was surrounded by floodwater. There was no power, no water. And the heat was stifling. Nurses had to fan patients by hand. And, outside the hospital windows, nurses tell CNN they saw looters breaking into this credit union.

Up on the seventh floor, Angela McManus was with her critically ill mother. Thursday, she noticed a change, too. Nurses, she says, were now discussing, for the first time, which patients would have to stay behind.

ANGELA MCMANUS, MOTHER DIED AT MEMORIAL HOSPITAL: I mean, these were grown men that were buckling down to their knees, because they were like, they couldn't believe that FEMA was making them stay there and watch the people die. They had decided not to evacuate the DNR patients.

GRIFFIN (on camera): That's when you heard for the first time...

MCMANUS: Right.

GRIFFIN: ... your mom was not going to get out.

MCMANUS: The first time.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): Angela McManus's had a DNR, a do-not- resuscitate order, but was alert. Her daughter says Wilda (ph) McManus did not make it out. She wants to believe her mother died peacefully from her illness, but now doesn't know.

On her death certificate, it lists the first cause of death merely as hurricane-related.

MCMANUS: I think she died from the infection. I don't know. I really don't know. And, you know, hearing -- this doctor was saying about euthanasia -- euthanasia at the hospital, I just don't know where to go.

GRIFFIN: The Louisiana Attorney General's Office is looking into what did happen to the patients at Memorial Hospital. Attorney General Charles Foti has told CNN that allegations of possible euthanasia there are -- quote -- "credible and worth investigating" -- end quote -- but that is all he will say.

While Foti will not provide any details of his investigation, a source familiar with it who did not want to be identified, told CNN that more than one person is being actively looked at as a possible person of interest for crimes related to euthanasia there.

Dr. Bryant King, who has since left Memorial, was working as a contract physician at the hospital in the days after Katrina. This is what he saw in the triage area Thursday, September 1.

DR. BRYANT KING, FORMER CONTRACT PHYSICIAN AT MEMORIAL HOSPITAL: ... and realized, there were no more fanners; there were no more nurses admins -- checking blood sugars or blood pressures. They were all pushed out.

And then there were -- there were people standing at the -- the -- the ramp at the Claire (ph) garage. There were people standing over by where the morgue were -- the chapel that we were using as the morgue. There were people standing at the entranceway to where the -- the -- the emergency room led up to the second-floor area.

So, it was kind of just being blocked off. And that didn't make sense to me. It didn't make sense why would we stop what we had been doing, especially given the fact that we are evacuating patients.

GRIFFIN: Dr. King said another hospital administrator asked if he and two other remaining doctors should pray. King says, one of those doctors, Dr. Anna Pou, had a handful of syringes.

B. J. KING: This is on the second floor in the lobby. This -- and across that walkway, there's a group of patients. And Anna is standing over there with a handful of syringes.

GRIFFIN (on camera): Dr. Anna Pou.

B. J. KING: Talking to a patient. And the -- the words that I heard her say were, "I'm going to give you something to make you feel better."

And she had a handful of syringes. I don't -- and that was strange on a lot of -- on a lot of different levels. For one, we don't give medications. The nurses give medications. We almost never give medications ourselves, unless it's something critical. It's in the middle of a code or -- even in the middle of a code, the nurses give medications.

Nobody -- nobody walks around with a handful of syringes and goes and gives the same thing to each patient. That -- that's just not how we do it.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): Dr. King had no way of knowing what was in those syringes. He left the hospital. He says he personally did not witness any acts of euthanasia.

Right after evacuating Memorial Hospital, Dr. Anna Pou had this to say to a Baton Rouge television station.

DR. ANNA POU, MEMORIAL HOSPITAL PHYSICIAN: There were some patients there that -- who were critically ill, and, regardless of the storm, were -- had the orders of, do not resuscitate, in other words, that if they died, to allow them to die naturally and not to use any heroic methods to resuscitate them.

We all did everything within our power to give the best treatment that we could to the patients in the hospital, to make them comfortable.

GRIFFIN: Dr. Pou talked to CNN in several phone calls in the days after the evacuation. She would not comment on the euthanasia allegations and has since hired an attorney.

Dr. Pou's attorney, Rick Simmons (ph), sent this statement to CNN on behalf of his client.

It reads: "The physicians and staff responsible for the care of patients, many of whom were gravely ill, faced loss of generator power, the absence of routine medical equipment to sustain life, lack of water and sanitation facilities, extreme heat, in excess of 100 degrees, all occurring," says the statement, "in an environment of deteriorating security, apparent social unrest, and the absence of governmental authority. Dr. Pou and other medical personnel," it reads, "at Memorial Hospital worked tirelessly for five days to save and evacuate patients, none of whom were abandoned. We feel confident that the facts will reveal heroic efforts by the physicians and the staff in a desperate situation."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GRIFFIN: How many deaths might be involved is still under investigation. And no charges have been filed.

There are two companies involved with patient care at Memorial Hospital. Tenet Healthcare runs the hospital. LifeCare of New Orleans leases space to care for long-term patients on the seventh floor. Both companies have declined to be interviewed, citing the ongoing investigation. But both say their employees acted heroically under difficult conditions.

And, John, they both say they're cooperating with the attorney general's investigation.

J. KING: Well, Drew, take us inside that investigation. It is highly emotional, incredibly sensitive. What, specifically, are the investigators looking for as they analyze the victims?

GRIFFIN: Well, 73 people have been sent subpoenas. They are being investigated.

In the meantime, we have learned the attorney general's office has sent tissue samples from the bodies recovered inside Memorial to a private lab for testing. What are they testing for? The Orleans Parish coroner, Frank Minyard, confirms to CNN, they are looking for, among other things, morphine in excessive amounts. That painkiller, in large doses, can kill. That is what they're looking for.

John.

J. KING: Drew Griffin, more remarkable work on a very difficult story. Thank you, Drew.

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIP...21/acd.01.html

[Petra]

If I had a sick and elderly relative (or were sick and elderly myself) in such circumstances, I would thank the doctors and nurses for their mercy.

[EsoCyn]

The authorities, from the tone of the article, are making it seem like they shot acid through their veins. If it's Morphine, shouldn't that at least show that they had good intent? That must mean something, at least.

[Annie]

Originally Posted by EsoCyn

Here's the transcript from the Andersoon Cooper 360 Show back in December, pertaining to the allegations;

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIP...21/acd.01.html

Frankly, more people should SUE - over Hospice-practices, Intentionally-ORDERED Morphine-overdoses, etc.

Having worked as a nurse for 30 years, let me say that 1000's more MD's, plus their willing co-horts in Crime, then need to stand Trial for "euthanizing" people, not only for those 4.

That said people momentarily get away with such murdering, speaks to humanity's evil proclivities.

I agreed to work in Hospice, only long enough to witness how incrementally snowing a person with increasingly-lethal doses of Morphine sulfate, adminstered under an M.D.'s ORDER no less, would make me, in fact, an accomplice in Murder, in cold blood. And then, they
exersize gall excusing themselves with: "I acted as God".

Have you any awareness how often such deceptive scenes play-out, every single second, every single minute, every single hour, every single day, ALL over the globe??

I went into Nursing, yeah 30 yrs. ago, with every intent of encouragingly guiding individuals' *self-healing...* This ought to be our resolute purpose, intent, goal, practice, aim, and success.

Annie

[LadyShea]

Annie, do you have any on topic thoughts to share? We are talking about a specific situation during Hurricane Katrina. Do you ever discuss any other topic besides yourself and your self healing?

Are you capable of discussing anything else? Do you have room for any other topic in your mind? Are you this boringly single minded in real life?

[Widget]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

Annie, do you have any on topic thoughts to share? We are talking about a specific situation during Hurricane Katrina. Do you ever discuss any other topic besides yourself and your self healing?

Are you capable of discussing anything else? Do you have room for any other topic in your mind? Are you this boringly single minded in real life?

LadyShea.
Would it possible for you to not quote Annie, I have her on ignore and you just completely screwed up my system, please pass the syringe.

[Godwhacker]

I have a strong suspicion that this whole prosecution is a way to deflect blame and criticism to where it really belongs, namely the government officials who failed to evacuate said patients, and the owners of the hospital who were obviously not prepared. They are the ones who should be put on trial for these deaths. If they had acted quicker to evacuate the patients, there would not be an issue.

Also, medicine is not an exact science, and I doubt that determining the level of morphine in a decomposed body can yield an exact amount that would determine that a patient was euthanized or not. Again, I think this is a fishing expedition designed by government officials to deflect criticism and blame.