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45 Patients Found Dead…Did the Doctors Kill Them??
Posted by Raven on September 12th, 2005
First I read this:
NEW ORLEANS (AP) – Forty-five bodies have been found at a hospital that was abandoned more than a week ago after it was surrounded by floodwaters unleashed by Hurricane Katrina, a state health official said Monday.
The bodies were located Sunday at Memorial Medical Center, said Bob Johannesen, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Hospitals. Johannesen said the bodies were those of patients, but he had no other information.
The Louisiana death toll rose to 279 on Monday, up from 197 on Sunday, Johannesen said.
On Sunday, reporters were kept at a distance from Memorial Medical by law enforcement officers as workers removed bodies from the hospital, situated in the city’s Uptown section.
The 317-bed hospital, owned by TenetHealthcare Corp., remained closed Monday and was still partially surrounded by floodwaters.
As I read this I became furious. YOU don’t abandon your patients, ever. No matter what.
Then I read this:
Doctors working in hurricane-ravaged New Orleans killed critically ill patients rather than leave them behind to die in agony as they evacuated hospitals, according to a shocking report in the respected British newspaper the Daily Mail.
One emergency official who spoke on the record, William “Forest” McQueen, told the Mail: “Those who had no chance of making it were given a lot of morphine and lain down in a dark place to die.”
McQueen, a utility manager for the town of Abita Springs near New Orleans, told relatives that patients had been “put down,” saying medical personnel “injected them, but nurses stayed with them until they died.”
The Mail did not name the other members of the medical staff interviewed by the newspaper in order to protect their identities. Euthanasia is illegal in Louisiana.One doctor said: “I didn’t know if I was doing the right thing. But I did not have time. I had to make snap decisions, under the most appalling circumstances, and I did what I thought was right.
“I injected morphine into those patients who were dying and in agony. If the first dose was not enough, I gave a double dose. And at night I prayed to God to have mercy on my soul.
“This was not murder. This was compassion. I had cancer patients who were in agony.”
The doctor said medical staffers divided patients into three categories: those who were medically fit enough to survive, those who needed urgent care, and the dying, the Mail reported.
“It came down to giving people the basic human right to die with dignity,” said the doctor.
“There were patients with ‘Do Not Resuscitate’ signs. Under normal circumstances, some could have lasted several days. But when the power went out, we had nothing.
“Some of the very sick became distressed. We tried to make them as comfortable as possible.
“You have to understand, these people were going to die anyway.” According to the Mail, the confessions of the medical staff “are an indictment of the appalling failure of American authorities to help those in desperate need after Hurricane Katrina flooded the city.”
September 12th, 2005 at 10:24 pm
Woah babies, this is positively dark –
I hope your hope is right too raves, but it makes you wonder — in a cataclysmic situation like tht, what factors go into making a judgment like that — and who’s left with the responsibility to make the judgment?
September 12th, 2005 at 10:46 pm
Somebody has a case of the Mondays
Today’s dose of NIF – News, Interesting & Funny … Ugh, Monday
September 13th, 2005 at 2:00 am
Can Nagin and Blanco be indicted or impeached or something?
September 13th, 2005 at 11:52 am
Interesting. Raven, if I am correct, atleast in military terms, that doctors and medics in the field will set up a “triage”, in desperate situation, where those likely to survive are given care and those not likely to survive are given minimal attention as to ease pain. Not that I am neccessarily comparing what happened in NO to a war situation, but that sometimes tough decisions of survival and limited resources are made. However, giving morphine to ease the pain is one thing, but ODing a patient to induce death is another. Interesting that they find time in the article to give a pass to the euthanasia crowd and bash the administration for its “failures”.
I have found several blogs that note that the response to Katrina was faster than other Hurricance Disasters ,such as Andrew and Hugo. But don’t let that stop the race-baiters and bush-haters from declaring an all-out racial jihad against ‘em. Pathetic passes are given to local and state administrations because of political blinders. Makes me sick to even turn on any news program because that is all I hear.
September 13th, 2005 at 9:46 pm
Heh…they have charged two people who own one nursing home…rumor has it another group of owners are going to be charged too. Next will be the medical directors (doctors) and then the nurses.
As it should be. There are no situations that would allow nurses to abandon their patients. NONE. Every facility has a disaster plan…that includes up to and including hurricanes, bomb threats, nuclear explosions…war…
February 20th, 2006 at 6:41 pm
:cry: It is awful to think that anyone could consiously inject too much of a powerful drug to already sick and distressed patients and then leave them to die in a dark corner somewhere no matter what the situation may be there is no reason to kill another person and they should have had a better prepared plan for this type of emergency situation. If that would have been me i couldn’t live with myself everyday knowing i had purposely took someone elses loved one.
November 4th, 2006 at 10:48 pm
Buon luogo, congratulazioni, il mio amico!
December 1st, 2006 at 11:30 pm
Leggo ed imparo sul vostro luogo. grazie!