Posted on 09/11/2005 2:36:06 PM PDT by kenth
Doctors working in hurricane-ravaged New Orleans killed critically ill patients rather than leaving them to die in agony as they evacuated hospitals, The Mail on Sunday can reveal. With gangs of rapists and looters rampaging through wards in the flooded city, senior doctors took the harrowing decision to give massive overdoses of morphine to those they believed could not make it out alive.
In an extraordinary interview with The Mail on Sunday, one New Orleans doctor told how she 'prayed for God to have mercy on her soul' after she ignored every tenet of medical ethics and ended the lives of patients she had earlier fought to save.
Her heart-rending account has been corroborated by a hospital orderly and by local government officials. One emergency official, William 'Forest' McQueen, said: "Those who had no chance of making it were given a lot of morphine and lain down in a dark place to die."
Euthanasia is illegal in Louisiana, and The Mail on Sunday is protecting the identities of the medical staff concerned to prevent them being made scapegoats for the events of last week.
Their families believe their confessions are an indictment of the appalling failure of American authorities to help those in desperate need after Hurricane Katrina flooded the city, claiming thousands of lives and making 500,000 homeless.
'These people were going to die anyway'
The 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."
The doctor, who finally fled her hospital late last week in fear of being murdered by the armed looters, said: "This was not murder, this was compassion. They would have been dead within hours, if not days. We did not put people down. What we did was give comfort to the end.
"I had cancer patients who were in agony. In some cases the drugs may have speeded up the death process.
"We divided patients into three categories: those who were traumatised but medically fit enough to survive, those who needed urgent care, and the dying.
"People would find it impossible to understand the situation. I had to make life-or-death decisions in a split second.
"It came down to giving people the basic human right to die with dignity.
"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.
"The pharmacy was under lockdown because gangs of armed looters were roaming around looking for their fix. You have to understand these people were going to die anyway."
Mr McQueen, a utility manager for the town of Abita Springs, half an hour north of New Orleans, told relatives that patients had been 'put down', saying: "They injected them, but nurses stayed with them until they died."
Mr McQueen has been working closely with emergency teams and added: "They had to make unbearable decisions."
Visit www.wesleyj.smith.com He's a medical bioethicist although I don't know his religious beliefs. He is married to one of the columnists from World Net Daily.
Florida didn't help Terri out but Florida does evacuate nursing homes and hospitals to higher ground BEFORE the event. Palms of Pasadena Hospital is right by the Gulf for example. Florida takes care of its seniors and infirmed before storms. There are also shelters here that allow pets now. If people won't leave their pets, pet shelters are the only way to save the lives of man and beast.
Bump
Bush and Blanco were on a high profile vehicle this morning driving through New Orleans. I realize that Bush is trying to be a gentlemen but Blanco doesn't deserve that kind of treatment. She should be impeached if anybody is left in La to start a recall petition.
IMO, you don't have to kill a person to take away their pain. But, I do realize the hospitals were ignored and became hell holes. I want a real investigation. If we get another 9-11 commission, we won't ever know everything that went wrong. Being from Florida, I can say that at the point Katrina was strengthening at the tip of Florida, that's when the evacuation takes place. No more excuses from the mayor or the governor. Been there, done that.
230. I'm sorry and I agree with the rest of your post.
Committing suicide is the easy way out at the time. Seems like the faux separation of church and state may be a bad idea. These cops would not have chosen that route if they knew how to pray.
thanks you
thanks FV, it was hard to see the best man I know die of Cancer like that, but he is in a better place now thankfully.
So, you'd rather your mother drown and die in agony? Is that what you're saying? I know where you stand on all of this, but we're talking about this particular story. Did you read it? Please explain what you would have wanted the Dr. to do.
The first people to indict for murder,
are the engineers who placed the emergency
generators below sea level, then the inspectors that
inspected those facilities every few months.
It certainly isn't above the intelligence level
of neanderthals to build their caves for fire above the
level of the nearby stream.
And I know where you stand on this. I know that for you, it's personal. I know what your choice was in the past, and will be in the future. Personally, I think murder is wrong. I would not have a doctor kill my mother. I would expect him to give her proper care and treatment, and to protect her. I am not opposed to pain medication, when it's used to alleviate pain. After my husband's bypass, I was glad he got the morpine he needed. But if anyone had attempted to use that morpine to murder him, I'd have given them a big surprise. I will never understand anyone wanting their loved ones to be murdered.
Looks like this story may actually be true.
Posted on Drudge-http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/09/12/D8CISTF81.html
Well, that was easy enough; I guess we can quit worrying about the whether now and simply deal with the when.
There's this small problem of voltage drop over distance.
Did you read the story? I was commenting on the story. Given these set of circumstances, what would you have wanted the Dr. to do?
I answered your question. Again, I would have wanted the doctor to do what doctors are supposed to do. Give proper care and treatment, and protect the patient. I wouldn't want the doctor to murder the patient, whether it was my mother with Alzheimer's, my father with cancer, or a complete stranger. Doctors are not supposed to murder patients.
A definition that includes 100% of the population. Watch your back! I hope they ID and prosecute a LOT of folks in the NO debacle. Sounds the the police, hospital admins, and everyone else dropped the ball. Sounds like the Big Easy did not value life much and that its social fabric was not suffused with any notion of honor.
Again, did you read the story> Given the facts of this story...what would you have wanted the Dr. to do? You didn't answer the question. They had to evacuate, there were dying patients who couldn't be evacuated. The Dr.'s had two choices...leave them to die a cruel death, or allow them to die peacefully. We're only talking about this circumstance.
Again, did you read the story> Given the facts of this story...what would you have wanted the Dr. to do? You didn't answer the question. They had to evacuate, there were dying patients who couldn't be evacuated. The Dr.'s had two choices...leave them to die a cruel death, or allow them to die peacefully. We're only talking about this circumstance.
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