Posted on 10/13/2005 4:54:12 AM PDT by WmCraven_Wk
NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- Three days after Hurricane Katrina flooded New Orleans, staff members at the city's Memorial Medical Center had repeated discussions about euthanizing patients they thought might not survive the ordeal, according to a doctor and nurse manager who were in the hospital at the time.
The Louisiana attorney general's office is investigating allegations that mercy killings occurred and has requested that autopsies be performed on all 45 bodies taken from the hospital after the storm.
Orleans Parish coroner Frank Minyard said investigators have told him they think euthanasia may have been committed.
"They thought someone was going around injecting people with some sort of lethal medication," Minyard said.
*snip*
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
No, I'm not infallible. I'm far from it and I'm very aware of that. But because I'm NOT God, then life and death issues are not mine to make.
Five years ago, my father who had been in perfect health until recently, fell in his home and had to be taken by ambulance to the hospital. He had been diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease during that year, although we're still not sure that was correct. When he got to the emergency room, the intern on call suggested to my mom that they withhold all nutrition, give him morphine and allow him to die. We were absolutely stunned. After my brothers and I drove in from our various states, we convened and decided that that was the most reprehensible thing we'd ever heard. The intern came in to talk to my mom and got VERY angry when he heard that we would not consider his suggestion. He said that she had already made the decision and they should stick with it. I get angry even now thinking of it. My father was given food, but he died a week later. We still think that he was struck by an orderly which killed him, but we had/have no proof. This is not an academic or abstract issue to me.
And oh, yes, this happened in VA. I don't want people who do not value life in positions to make these kind of decisions.
I think a sick patient has to look at the situation. No power...the room temperature is 100 degrees...no real food...a saline solution is about all they can hook up and provide you. No one coming into the hospital on day two or day three with water or giving a hint of rescue. By the sixth day...it'd be awful hard to find power to go on each day. I won't pass judgement on anyone. The blame, if any should go around...is based on the city. This town never expected an emergency, and couldn't handle anything beyond a 12-hour power outage. Its a pitiful place to live, and I feel sorry for anyone who really wants to go back there.
There were times when they wanted to.
Once my dad and the neighbor (1/2) mile away, each plowed the road from their direction with their tractors to get us one lane we could travel to see each other. I think it helped them to see other adults.
"And of course, it's all about YOU."
Just where in the hell did this come from? About me? Are you out of your mind?
I am so sick of people on here that cannot relate to anything except their own opinion. You know what? This is the America. We all get an opinion. Whether you think I deserve one of not. Get over yourself. And do not post to me again.
Bookmarked.
Happens in MD, too. Cases in point: My wife's dad was admitted for stomach pain, but he turned out to have moderately advanced cirrhosis of the liver. They stabilized his condition, but he was unlikely to improve enough to go home. The attending physician asked the family if they'd like him to "do something about it". My wife left the room, but someone else obviously said "yes", because he died within the hour. BTW, he was fully conscious the whole time, but no one asked him.
Later on, a 95-year-old aunt who was in a nursing home "fell out of bed and broke her leg" and needed to be rushed to the hospital. When we arrived at her bedside, she told us had no idea that her leg was broken, and I suspect that it was not. At any rate, there was no cast or splint. The duty nurse repeated the phone message to us verbatim and would add nothing. When we came back the next morning, she was unresponsive, and died by evening. Cause of death: pneumonia. Yeah, riiight.
If someone ever suggests putting my loved ones down again, I will tell them "Not only is my answer no, but if they pass away under your care I will hold you fully responsible." Then I will go home and lock and load.
I agree.
My jaw hit the floor when I read this, then I though about how all the other unbelievable stories we've heard have turned out to be untrue (which I'm still wondering if they are really untrue, or if the political leaders have decided they needed to now say they are untrue because it somehow affected the flow of donations). The TRUTH is that someone LIED. The liars were either the media who originallly reported it, or the police and politicians who are now denying it.
Now I wonder about the hospital story. If these were terminally ill, critical patients, the heat and lack of life support systems probably got to several of them. I don't understand why patients were not wheeled up to windows to get air if it was so hot and stuffy in the hospital? I know that would have done little to lower the temperature, but circulating fresh air would have helped. If the windows are not operable, why were they not shattered?
How sad. Can't these murderers lose their licenses for this? Be prosecuted? My mother-in-law's niece had lung cancer and obviously did not have long to live. They arranged for her to get daily home-bound hospice care. She died after their first visit. We're suspicious. I've told my family that if they ever put me in a hospice or remove a feeding tub, etc., I will come back and haunt them.
The local nursing home also had an "angel of death"; a gigantic mentally retarded orderly who would strangle the residents in their sleep. Amazingly, he killed four before anyone caught on that something suspicious was happening. It must be something in the water.
I think it's probably more widespread than I would ever have imagined. I never want to be institutionalized when I'm older.
Lives could be dedicated to sifting the truth from the urban legend of New Orleans, and I'm not sure we'll ever know when we finally know the truth.
I can honestly say that if it were my grandmother, slowly starving (hospitals don't keep as much food on hand as you'd think, fresh deliveries are made every day. I worked in one for 17 years)or dehydrating because of no running water...90 years old and slowly weakening, maybe no pain meds because the Pyxis was down or supplies were running out...would I want her to peacefully drift off to sleep or continue to suffer for another week? I'd put an elderly dog out of its misery if I couldn't care for it under those circumstances and if it was suffering.
I also want to say that God *did* take the lives of all those nursing home patients and it wasn't an easy way to go. I'd rather get an injection myself and not be aware of it all, rather than slowly drown to death in a bed I couldn't get out of, struggling to keep my face above water as long as I could, knowing what was going to happen.
You have put your finger on the Big Lie of the euthanizers. They talk soothingly about "death with dignity" and the "right to die." They assure us that the patient will always be the one who decides; there will always be safeguards and procedures to protect those who do no wish to be killed.
But in practice, someone else decides. All too soon, the right to die becomes the duty to die. Sick human beings can be so awfully inconvenient. Better to spare them (and more importantly, us) the pain and expense of caring for them.
It is part of the slippery slope.
We put our elderly dogs out of our misery. Our grandmothers are human.
I also want to say that God *did* take the lives of all those nursing home patients and it wasn't an easy way to go.
The same can be said for the victims of homicide bombers. It was "man" who either caused the deaths in either case or who allowed the scenario to take place.
Sounds like what you'd hear down at the dog pound.
With the rapes and murders, did people discuss whether or not it actually happened, or whether rape is right or wrong?
Everyone agrees rape is wrong (at least publicly.) Why can't every agree that murder is wrong?
OMG! When you run out of supplies, you don't start killing the patients. You improvise. If you don't have precision made sterile sponges, you use what you can find. You sterilize and reuse equipment. You do what you have to do. You don't give up easily when your patients life depends on you doing the right thing.
If you have 39 staff, and 40 patients that need to be hand ventilated, you start teaching the relatives how to do it before the generators go out. If you have no advance warning, then you teach them on the spot. No doubt, that's a panic situation. But panic does not justify premeditated murder.
If you have to ration supplies, that's a bad situation, but it still doesn't justify murder. You use the supplies to the best advantage of the patients. If a patient dies because there weren't enough supplies, that's a tragedy. If a patient dies because the doctors and nurses he trusted to take care of him decided to murder him instead, that is so much worse.
I also want to say that God *did* take the lives of all those nursing home patients and it wasn't an easy way to go. I'd rather get an injection myself and not be aware of it all, rather than slowly drown to death in a bed I couldn't get out of, struggling to keep my face above water as long as I could, knowing what was going to happen.
Oh enough of the histrionics. Water does not have to run out of a faucet to be drinkable. Boil some water for drinking. This might involve actually starting a fire, but for crying out loud, how much is her life worth? Scrounge up some food somewhere. There was enough food for the doctors and nurses, but not enough for Granny? There was no way in and out of the hospital to gather supplies? Her bed was in the first-floor lobby? She couldn't be plucked out of the water and moved to a higher floor? Give me a break.
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