Posted on 09/25/2006 3:46:58 PM PDT by wagglebee
NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana, September 25, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The doctor accused, along with two nurses, of murdering four patients in a New Orleans hospital in the days after hurricane Katrina struck has denied the accusations. She also said she does not believe in euthanasia.
Arrested and charged with four counts of second-degree murder for lethally injecting patients during a panicked exit from the flooded Memorial Medical Center, Dr. Anna Pou insists she and the two nurses only gave “comfort care” to the elderly patients.
“It is unbelievable shocking for me that I am actually sitting here having this conversation with you on national TV,” said Dr. Pou in an interview with Morley Safer for CBS on Sunday Sept. 24. “And I want everyone to know that I am not a murderer, that we are not murderers.”
“I do not believe in euthanasia. I don’t think that it’s anyone’s decision to make when a patient dies…” she said later in the interview. “What I do believe in is comfort care, and that means that we ensure that they do not suffer pain.”
Louisiana Attorney General Charles Foti, Jr. charged Dr. Pou and nurses Cheri Landry and Lori Budo last July with causing the deaths of four patients, among the 34 found dead in the Memorial Medical Center following the hurricane.
According to a case affidavit, witnesses have testified that, led by Dr. Pou, the three took syringes and drugs to a ward for the chronically-ill on the seventh floor of the hospital, where they injected four patients with a “lethal cocktail” of drugs.
“People can’t presume to act for you and take your life, and the allegation is that they committed homicide on these four people,” said Foti. “People testified…We then spent almost 10 ½ months investigating and, after all of this, can only come to the conclusion that this crime had been committed.”
According to Foti, lethal amounts of painkillers morphine and Versed were found in the patients during post-mortems.
“When you use both of them together, it becomes a lethal cocktail and guarantees they’re going to die,” said Foti.
“This is not euthanasia. This is plain and simple homicide.”
The patients were considered too ill to be evacuated from the facility, which had been operating without power or adequate supplies for four days of 110-degree heat, under conditions that had already contributed to the deaths of several patients.
Foti told CBS he took hospital conditions into consideration when he made the decision to press charges.
Dr. Pou is a head and neck surgeon with 15 years experience, who specializes in working with cancer patients.
Read CBS coverage:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/09/21/60minutes/main2030...
See previous LifeSiteNews coverage:
Doctor and Two Nurses Arrested For Hurricane Katrina "Euthanasia" Nightmare
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/jul/06071806.html
Court Documents: Hospital Gave Lethal Injections to Patients During Hurricane Katrina
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2005/jul/05071204.html
All euthanasia is homocide.
Ping.
Well, the law says you ARE a murderer. Rot in prison and then hell, psychopath.
"Well, the law says you ARE a murderer. Rot in prison and then hell, psychopath."
Were you there?
You sound like a raving lunatic yourself.
At least I didn't kill anyone.
Filthy conditions, no fuel, no security, no escape--no way to run the delicate machinery...I'm going to wait until all the facts are in before I believe a medical team went murderous.
Think I will wait for the trial before I cast my verdict based on all of the information provided here, thanks.
"She was charged, not yet convicted."
As of today, though they have been accused, none of the three women have yet been charged with any crime. The grand jury in Orleans Parish could go with the second degree murder charge, decide on a lesser charge or even decide the case isn't worthy of prosecution.
From what I've heard locally, I think this is more possible than you want to believe.
What is MOST interesting is a conversation that a witness overheard on the ramp of the hospital. The gist of it was that the company managing the floor where these patients were supposedly told the doctors that patients in certain condition were not to be rescued. The doctor was overheard saying this was what was told her on a cellphone- and that she would 'take care of it'.
IF that is the case, those patients were intentionally euthanized.
And if the verdict is guilty, I would administer the same treatment to the doctor and two nurses.
This is VERY emotional for me. I lost my father due to Katrina. I KNOW the conditions( and the attitudes toward the elderly) in the hospitals here before and after the storm.
Yes, I believe those DNR patients were considered 'disposable.' DNR means 'do not resucitate', not 'help die.'
There wouldn't be many suspects.
I can't imagine how tough this past year has been for you. Condolences to you and yours.
I have close relatives who WERE in that hospital, and one other. Medical personnel. They were very available- one even swam that filthy water rescuing people and did triage at University until he was airlifted out to another hospital. We didn't see him for over a month!"I" was 'avaliable' for my 86 year old father who was in a wheelchair, with Alzheimers and a feeding tube. We couldn't come home for a month- and when we did, he immediately picked up the infection that killed him before the holidays. If he had been hospitalized during Katrina, I planned to stay with him- even tho I had been told I wouldn't be allowed to.
The hopeless conditions inside the hospitals didn't have to happen! In the days before the storm, generators could have been brought in- truckloads of supplies as well!
Hospitals are profit producing and every one here- in a city that has ALWAYS flooded even without hurricanes- had their generators in basements. Flooding and loss of power to the hospital is a danger every hurricane season. In all the years those hospitals have existed, why haven't they put their generators above the first floor? A flooded city notwithstanding, power would have made all the difference . These same hospitals are preparing to open again, and it has not been reported that the generators have been moved from the basements!
There is NO reason for hospitals not to be prepared for what they KNOW will happen in a hurricane! Lay in extra of everything...get critical patients out before the storm. We get supplies to the Third World in days, hospitals in an American city couldn't have stocked up on everything??
Now your suggestion that the patients families abandoned them. How odious!
Those patients families evacuated TRUSTING that their loved ones were in a place where they could get the care they needed- and paid for! Do you think people could have evacuated with terminally ill people, people on dialysis? Taking many of them out of hospitals would have been a certain death sentence IF the doctors had released them.
Bottom line is- the hospitals were not prepared for a hurricane, and there is no excuse for it. People paid to be cared for, not killed; suffering or not. There is no ' kill me if I suffer too much' clause on an admit form- no Jack Kevorkian wing.
Doctors take an oath to 'do no harm'. The terrible conditions resulted from non-preparation on the hospital's part, everyone suffered because hospitals in a below-sea-level city didn't want to spend the money to prepare their facilities. Every hospital in this city could have been locked down with power and all needed supplies until they were evacuated!
It is heroic that as many medical people stayed as did- including my relatives. I've heard first person horror stories you cannot begin to imagine. But staying doesn't mean they we can't question what may have happened; and staying in the future shouldn't mean they will be beyond question.
Pinged from Terri SEPTEMBER Dailies
8mm
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.