On Any Other Day July 20, 2006 zuzu Via Lindsay, a post by Da Po’ Blog about how the Louisiana AG is treating the case of a doctor and two nurses charged with killing their patients in the aftermath of Katrina as if they had made their decisions on a day like any other.
I heard about this on the radio and it seemed insane. OBVIOUSLY, in flooded hospitals that were 110 degrees inside, if a doctor and nurse gave overdoses of morphine, it was to ease the suffering off the dying, and possibly to ease them into the next life. If these humanitarian folks are to blame, what about the doctors and nurses who ABANDONED patients? This whole thing stinks in the worst way.
Except according to several family members present, many of those “relieved” weren’t dying until they received injections.
Let me clarify – I’m not saying that those family members are necessarily right – anxious children are frequently optimistic, if not downright deluded, about their failing parent’s state of health. I’m not convinced that they did the wrong thing.But I’m not convinced they did the right thing, either, and that there is adequate cause here for a trial to sort out those questions.
Except that in this case it wasn’t just morphine. The doctor in question gave a deadly medicine coctail to at least 4 non-terminal patients that weren’t her patients without asking them what they wanted. The doctor and the 2 nurses involved weren’t the only ones present and there are witnesses. Someone I know who works for the hospital indicated to me that it wasn’t just 4 patients.
After reading about the conditions faced by Dr Pou and the two nurses who stayed behind in this NYT article, I’m not surprised or upset that Dr Pou administered palliative care to those who were to weak to be evacuated. The temperature in the hospital, the lack of electricity to run life support machines, and the inability to effectively evacuate – it’s also not surprising to me that people in intensive care would die in such a situation. Crucifying one doctor who actually cared anough to stay behind won’t solve the real problems here.