Three arrested in New Orleans.......

[harleygirl]

NEW ORLEANS - 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."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060718...Xp5_Cus0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3MjBwMWtkBHNlYwM3MTg-

I am not sure how I feel about this........on one hand, if I was the patient, I might request for someone to do this, as a nurse, I am not sure I could do it. It is done now for end-stage cancer victims, it is just not talked about much. Morphine slows the heart rate way down and makes the dying process come more quickly and painlessly. I sat with my Aunt, who was a nurse and was in end stage of cancer, as she went through the dying process. She made us all promise that when she was at the end we would request the max amount of morphine to help end her suffering. I guess the difference was she requested it, it was not forced. It is going to be very interesting how this case pans out.

 

[migtig]

"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."

How does Foti, an attorney who wasn't even there, know that for a fact versus a doctor and two nurses who were there? Seems to me this Attorney Foti is just looking for some publicity.

I can see both sides of the fence as well, but if these two nurses and one doctor were really evil, they would have wiped out all the patients, instead of easing the suffering of a few. Did you see the pics of the hospital when rescue workers FINALLY got there? Only a few docs and nurses - no real sanitary conditions - rooms were flooded - limited power - no ac - sweltering heat and stench. Would it have been better for those people to die agonizing drawn out deaths in those in conditions? Or to have some peace and comfort?

 

[kwillia]

"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."

How does Foti, an attorney who wasn't even there, know that for a fact versus a doctor and two nurses who were there? Seems to me this Attorney Foti is just looking for some publicity.

I can see both sides of the fence as well, but if these two nurses and one doctor were really evil, they would have wiped out all the patients, instead of easing the suffering of a few. Did you see the pics of the hospital when rescue workers FINALLY got there? Only a few docs and nurses - no real sanitary conditions - rooms were flooded - limited power - no ac - sweltering heat and stench. Would it have been better for those people to die agonizing drawn out deaths in those in conditions? Or to have some peace and comfort?

I remember a thread about this back when it was first announced... and based on the conditions stated at the time, I had stated that I had no reason to doubt they did what they believed to be in the best interest of those people... if it had been my Nana, I would think she would have been better off passing in a morphin induces stupor rather than drowning or dying the painfully miserable death that so many other elderly patients had to endure.

 

[BuddyLee]

In tragic instances such as Katrina, you can't hold someone accountable of this.

...and if you do...

...start rounding up all the looters and thieves.

 

[greyhound]

This is an excerpt from the "Hippocratic Oath" taken by Dr.'s:

4. i. And I will not give a drug that is deadly to anyone if asked [for it],


ii. nor will I suggest the way to such a counsel.

 

[kwillia]

Kin Suspicious About New Orleans Hospital Deaths After Hurricane Katrina

A woman who prosecutors say was killed by a doctor and two nurses in a sweltering, flooded hospital after Hurricane Katrina had suffered from bronchitis but was otherwise in good health, family members said.

"She didn't act like a 90-year-old," Jennie Crabtree said of her mother, Rose Savoie. "She was all there. She knew where she was. She knew who she was."

Crabtree said she was angry at the way her mother died.



WHERE THE HELL WAS THIS KIN WHEN THE LOOMING HURRICANE HIT THE NEWS...


The daughter of another patient in the case said her mother, Ireatha Watson, had been very sick, with gangrene in both legs and dementia, but that she been stable two days before Katrina hit.

Yeah, I'm sure her sudden stability will sweeten the lawsuit pot...

 

[migtig]

WHERE THE HELL WAS THIS KIN WHEN THE LOOMING HURRICANE HIT THE NEWS...

But on a side note. It's very hard to prove that this was NOT an accidental overdose considering the conditions that were prevailant at the time. The automatic drug dispenser wasn't exactly working since the power wasn't. Oh and the computer systems happened to be flooded, so charts couldn't exactly be cross-referenced, et al