8mm
Posted on 07/04/2007 7:11:32 PM PDT by monomaniac
New Orleans, LA (LifeNews.com) -- Two nurses accused of euthanizing patients in the wake of Hurricane Katrina have seen the charges against them dropped by the district attorney in the case. Nurses Lori Budo and Cheri Landry were arrested along with physician Anna Pou on charges that they killed four patients. All three worked at New Orleans' Memorial Medical Center at the time of the hurricane.
The three were accused of killing as many as nine patients so they could relinquish their responsibility for patients and flee the hospital as conditions there deteriorated.
John DiGiulio, Landry's attorney, said he was pleased the charges were dropped and told the Associated Press, "We thought this was how it would end."
"We're cautiously optimistic that, when it's all over, no one will be charged -- including Dr. Pou," he added.
Budo and Landry were required to testify before a grand jury last month under an agreement that made sure their testimony would not be used against them.
Assistant District Attorney Michael Morales had indicated he would drop the charges against the nurses once they testified. Budo's charges were refused Friday and Landry's were refused in late June. They were charged with second-degree murder.
Rick Simmons, Pou's attorney, told AP he thinks Pou will be found innocent.
"All along, Dr. Pou and the nurses have contended that there was no criminal wrongdoing in connection with their conduct at Memorial Hospital," he said. "We are glad that the charges against the nurses have been dismissed and look forward to a similar result with regard to Dr. Pou."
Louisiana Attorney General Charles Foti launched an investigation into the deaths of 34 patients at the hospital during and after the hurricane. More than 70 witnesses were subpoenaed to testify in the probe.
Foti told CNN the investigation found that four patients were given a lethal dose of morphine and other drugs to hasten their death.
After Foti's investigation, he turned the case over to Orleans Parish District Attorney Eddie Jordan who let a grand jury determine whether any charges should be sought.
Kris Wartelle, a spokeswoman for Attorney General Charles Foti said the state's top attorney general didn't consider the deaths euthanasia but homicides.
National Public Radio, in February 2006, published papers from the investigation that indicated that staff members had a discussion about long-term care patients on the seventh floor and what to do about them.
Three staff members told the attorney general that the plan was to leave no living patients behind and "a lethal dose would be administered" for patients deemed unable to be saved.
One doctor, Bryant King, told CNN in October that he overheard other conversations.
King refused to identify the people involved in the discussions and later said he never heard them talk about euthanasia, only "ending suffering." Yet the tenor of their discussion led him to believe they were planning to end the lives of patients they deemed beyond hope.
"It appeared they were proceeding with that plan," said Dr. King.
But, Dr. Pou had told Baton Rouge television station WBRZ in November that "There were some patients there who were critically ill who, regardless of the storm, had the orders of do not resuscitate. In other words, if they died, to allow them to die naturally, and to not use heroic methods to resuscitate them."
"We all did everything in our power to give the best treatment that we could to the patients in the hospital to make them comfortable," Pou said then.
Meanwhile, Angela McManus told AP that her 70 year-old mother was in the hospital at the time recovering from a blood infection and appeared in fine condition when relatives were told to leave the hospital. She died later that day.
It depends on what the meaning of "is" is.
So long as you use the right vocabulary, you're innocent. It doesn't matter what you do, it matters how you describe it.
What a brave new world we have.
Ugh. I thought that even though it was Democrat, New Orleans was more or less pro-life. Evidently not. Disgusting.
At least they didnt leave then there to drown.
Although I am against Euthanasia,sometimes it may be the best course of action. We werent there why should we judge these people?
There is no sense of RESPONSIBILITY in the public service industry anymore.
Cops abandoned the city. Some looted. Medical teams disappeared and in this case killed patients so they could leave.
It’s a sick world. And we want to SOCIALIZE MEDICINE AND PUT OURSELVES IN THEIR HANDS?
This is NOT Bush’s fault but it’ll never make national news.
As far as I can tell it would be extremely difficult to PROVE these charges, even if they were true.
And even if the charges were true, I could not condemn the doctor or nurses. Unless you were there (here) I doubt you could understand, but sometimes a crime is not a crime and a sin is not a sin. Sometimes you have two choices, both very bad, and you have to pick one; you may never know in this lifetime if you were right.
Medical personnel here were working without power, understaffed, with little information coming in, in stifling heat without ventilation - for days. They did what they could to alleviate suffering. They may not have been able to administer ‘normal’ medications or ‘appropriate’ dosages because of inability to monitor conditions or lack of availability. We don’t know. I do not believe there was any malice. Most patients survived. Had these doctors and nurses just walked away, while they still could have, it might not have been a crime but the patients would have suffered more and died. And I would not be defending Dr. Pou.
As a Toxicologist proving the case will be difficult if not impossible. If it was done under LA law it was a crime. This is a horrible now win situation, but two questions I ask myself are: If I was a SEAL medic what would I do and are the helicopters just over the horizon? It is interesting that this type of situation did not occur at Charity.
ping
Ugh. I thought that even though it was Democrat, New Orleans was more or less pro-life. Evidently not. Disgusting.
there was a show about this on WWL radio (New Orleans) a few weeks ago, and the overwhelming number of callers were for letting the doctors and nurses off the hook.
I remain comviced that several hundred of the deaths blamed on Katrina were actually murders. With no rule of law and the total breakdown, Many took time to settle scores with almost no way to get caught.
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Did any investigators ask you or others in your unit about what you might have seen or heard at that time?
If patients were given an overdose of drugs, presumably an autopsy and toxicological testing would clarify what was given to whom. And a sudden uptick in the number of deaths of the elderly from anything other than drowning should have somebody’s attention.
That's from the same CNN transcript in which Dr. King is said to have accused Dr. Pou. The same interview show that describes how he abandoned everyone at the hospital.
If there's no electricity, the nurses and doctors would have been ventilating the patients by hand, with whatever oxygen tanks or room air that was available. Why didn't this strong young man stay to help "bag" the patients so that they could breathe? Why didn't he stay to protect the women nurses and doctors?
I hope I never need to depend on Dr. King - either as a colleague or as a physician to my medical needs.
On the other hand, if the nurses can't manage my ventilator and if there's no oxygen and no IV's to keep me hydrated, I hope that the doctors will give me medicine to make me comfortable as possible while I am going through the air hunger and dehydration.
This is the point where intent is more a determining factor of ethics than the actual act. Even if it puts me at risk of dying sooner from the medicine plus the lack of ventilation,if the intention is to make me comfortable, but my death is not intended, then the doctor will be practicing good medicine.
Best course of action... I hope you’re not married and have a huge policy on the missus. /s
Are your parents and grandparents still alive?
Do you have any disabled relatives?
If they were in that situation and you had four days to do something... would you pin your hopes on someone giving them a shot and not bother?
Do you have children?
It could have easily been your child in an accident at a regular hospital who couldn’t walk re: casts... euthanize her because I can’t carry him/her?
Or newborns because we can’t carry the formula, diapers and everything they need?
Or a burn victim, post-op heart patient?
Let’s say, like all Gulf coasters you blew the threat off (I used to live there)... as usual; Owners of hospitals, nursing homes, orphanages and their medical staff don’t have that luxury, they are to start the evac as soon as possible ahead of the hurricane’s proj. hit.
They had days to get them out... there’s no excuse.
Because they’re in a certain state, you take even earlier action.
Now if you wanted to say ‘Where were their relatives and why didn’t they come get them?’, that’s one thing, but these are facilities (even if private), that are part of the evacuation plan for the city, just as the state has facilities to evacuate. (Unless these folks had no relatives or friends)
I see they had presence of mind to get themselves out after putting the patients down though. That has to kill them
As someone who searched for her family for weeks there, and fielded calls from a lawyer in Baton Rouge to our military for rescues, that pisses me off.
I know what you’re trying to say, re: suffering, the staff shouldn’t have been put in that situation by the owners to begin with.
The key is the flippant way the doc says, some had a DNR anyway to die naturally... As you know with the Groningen Protocol doctors make the decisions on life or death, not the relatives, they are attempting to kill the disabled up to 12 and forget about the elderly... oh, and your opinion doesn’t count.
We are judged by how we treat our most vulnerable, whether newborns, disabled, elderly.
Do you think relatives signed a piece of paper that said “In the event of natural disaster, should we not be able to transport your loved one to safety, we will end their suffering through euthanasia? When their relatives were worried and trying to get through... and if they got through earlier, what did they tell them? We’re leaving, getting them out of here, we don’t think we can make it and can we give grandma a shot?
But who knows, maybe all the other floors were evac’d just fine... it was just that seventh floor... you know Long Term Care where they received long term checks and should have been a second home to those there. The decision to put them there had to be painful for someone to start with. I guess there’s some folks who have to come to grips with a lot.
Okay, rant off.
It was a Tenet hospital. The main problem seems to be management.
http://www.endowmentmed.org/index.php?Itemid=6&id=436&option=com_content&task=view
I think a better question is “If I was a SEAL medic and I was told nobody’s coming what would I do?”
How many Marines died because of trying to bring back a dead Marine?
Do No Harm. This case may look gray but it isn’t. Everything possible should have been done to save the living (breathing with or without help).
ping
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